In Torfan, no-one cares if you scream
by magkiln
Summary: It has been sixth months since the Skyllian Blitz and the galaxy has started to move on. But although their rhetoric has lost its edge, the United Systems are not prepared to let this insult pass. Twenty years ago, they taught the galaxy a lesson. Now it seems that some people need a refresher course.
1. The Spy

**Mass Effect is the property of Bioware. 20th Century Fox owns the Alien/Predator franchise.**

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 **Welcome! This is a continuation of my previous two stories: _Someone has heard them scream_ and _Somone had blundered._ Twenty years have passed and we're getting close to the time of ME1. As before, I will try to write this story so that it can be read on its own, but there will be many references to events from the past, which doesn't always conform to ME canon. The story will also be fairly short, because it will only deal with one event: the human assault on Torfan.**

 **While this is technically still and ME Alien/AvP crossover in the sense that it mixes both universes, neither the xenomorph nor the predators will make an appearance here. The xenomorphs really have no place in these events. ( I considered having the humans use them as a bioweapon, but I'd already established that humanity has finally learned its lesson not to mess with this species. The image of Shepard feeding batarians to the xenomorphs was amusing but a bit over the top anyway.) I could have the Yautja around observing and commenting on events, but I feel I've used that particular trick enough already and the Yautja have better things to do with their time.**

 **So, this will in practice be a pure ME story as far as characters are concerned though some of the weapons and equipment from the Alien universe will make an appearance.**

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 **Torfan**

Lieutenant Kirahe stared at his console and smiled. It was the first time in weeks that he had done so. Then again, his current assignment did not give him many occasions for joy. It was both boring and intensely frustrating at the same time. Only a few months before, he had been on Tuchanka, monitoring Krogan birthrates to determine if the genophage still functioned as intended. Now that had been a proper assignment: important, dangerous, and with even a bit of action to enliven the drudgery of collecting data. An enjoyable mission, one he wouldn't mind repeating  
Unfortunately, that was when the fun ended. Someone in the turian Hierarchy had called in a favour and someone in the Special Tasks Group had decided that Kirahe would be in charge of delivering that favour. As a result, Kirahe's ship had spent several days travelling through the Terminus systems; then several days more, slowly creeping into theTorfan system while remaining undetected, and ever since they had been hanging in orbit around the star, steadily collecting data.

In itself, it was a typical STG mission and Kirahe would not have objected to it, but in this case, the subject of the data was so thoroughly disgusting. In itself, the Torfan system was unremarkable: A star, a couple of gas giants and a piece of rock that barely qualified as a planet. Its one interesting feature was a mass relay, which, because of the vagueries of both the relay network and galactic politics, connected to Citadel Space, the Attican Traverse, and the Terminus. As such it should have been the perfect spot for traders of all kinds to meet, make deals, and exchange cargoes. In practice, no self-respecting merchant would go near the place.

Everyone knew what Torfan was. It was a transfer station for the slave trade. Batarian raiders, NOT in any way sanctioned by the Hegemony, of course, would enter through the Traverse to dump their cargo, which would be picked up by traders from the Terminus. It was for this reason, and this reason alone, that a small colony had been built on the surface (or rather beneath the surface) of Torfan's only non-gaseous planet, an airless rock that would otherwise never have been settled. However, the colony was needed. After all, the Batarians needed a holding area for the large numbers of sapient beings that they were moving through. Meanwhile, the colony doubled as a place of rest and recreation for those who had a strong enough stomach for that kind of entertainment.

This situation was what Kirahe and his crew had been observing for the past two weeks and he was heartily sick of it. One relay jump away, the jump toward Citadel Space, was a Turian patrol fleet. He knew they were there because he had been sending them regular updates on the affairs of Torfan. That was the favour the Hierarchy had requested, though it was unclear why they would want it. Sure, the turian patrol fleet could easily move in and scrape the Torfan system out like a hollow shell and reduce the colony to a dust-filled crater. In the process, they would almost certainly kill most of the several thousand innocent slaves that were imprisoned on the surface at any given time, but turians were willing to accept that as the cost of doing business and Kirahe could see their point. Besides, one could argue that the slaves would be better off dead anyway.

But the turians wouldn't move, couldn't move. As long as the terminus warlords stayed out of Citadel Space, the Hierarchy's fleet would not interfere in their affairs either. Especially not now. The batarian Hegemony had made it very clear that they would not approve of any adventurism in the Terminus and the council had decided that it was a good time to placate them. After all, there had been plenty of friction in recent years. Kirahe was old enough to remember the massive upset that had occurred when the Hegemony discovered that the council had granted the wish of the newly discovered humans to settle in the Skyllian Verge. The batarian ambassador had nearly exploded in rage. After all, the Verge was an area that the Hegemony had already marked as its own. The fact that they had never got around to colonizing it was beside the point as far as they were concerned.  
The resulting shouting match had become a favourite among extranet users and compilations of it could still be found among the 'most watched' lists. They usually showed the batarian ambassador, standing on the speaker's platform, raging at the council and the humans, intercut with images of the newly appointed human ambassador, watching him with mild curiosity as though she was observing an exotic animal in a cage. Never mind that the human ambassador had not even been there and the images had been compiled from other occasions, it never ceased to amuse. Still, amusing or not, the consequences had been felt for a long time and one of them was that the council was now going out of its way not to push the batarians any further. That included siding with the batarians whenever complaints of raiding parties came up, as long as the Hegemony maintained plausible deniability, as well as a strictly hands-off approach to anything that happened in the Terminus, another area where the batarians claimed to have a 'security interest'.

So Kirahe and his crew had sat in their ship, collected data, and sent their updates. All in the full knowledge that nothing would come from it. It was all so very frustrating. Besides, even under the best of circumstances, Kirahe would have been bored. Collecting data was all well and good, but he wanted more. He wanted to act on his data. After all, what good was knowledge if you didn't put it to some use? He had often wondered what the galaxy would look like if STG was just a little more pro-active. The whole situation with the humans was the perfect example. STG had known what was going on from the moment that the first turian ship returned from their disastrous first contact with the newly discovered species. They had known what general Desolas Arterius had planned as soon as he started to put his invasion force together. But they had done nothing. Nothing except for sending an STG vessel along with the turian fleet. That had guaranteed them a front-row seat as the disaster unfolded. Useful, certainly, but also so very unnecessary. One single bullet could have solved the problem. A simple accident as general Arterius performed basic maintenance on his gun. It could have been arranged. Not easily, but definitely possible.

 _No general Arterius, no invasion, no counter attack, no desperate negotiations. Could have carefully approached humans, explained situation, mistakes, everything. Negotiations so much easier. Perhaps refuse to listen, but unlikely_ _. Can be unreasonable, but usually not stupid. In the end, understood what went wrong at Relay 314. Most don't hold against turians. Invasion enraged them. Still causes trouble. For want of bullet, galaxy worse place._

Thinking of humans Kirahe turned back to his console. Finally, after all this time he had found something of true interest. A human freighter had entered the system two days ago and the salarians had been monitoring it, as they monitored all ships in the system. Not that the presence of a human freighter was all that interesting. Ever since they had appeared on the galactic stage, the humans had quickly made their presence felt. Although their government maintained a barely concealed state of undeclared hostility and human space remained mostly closed to other species, many of them had chosen to travel far and wide. They had established a handful of colonies outside their government's sphere of influence. Others had chosen to live on the Citadel or any number of independent planets and their traders could now be found in any port. Especially in the Terminus, where they were not subject to the import restrictions and taxes that the Citadel governments forced on them in retaliation to the identical policies of the Alliance of United Systems.  
Still, something was just a little off about this particular ship being here. For one thing, Torfan was a batarian dominated colony and humans and batarians did not get along at all. For another, it was not the first human ship Kirahe had seen here and there seemed to be a pattern. They came, they exchanged cargoes, they left; but they never seemed to interact much with the other ships in Torfan space. So why come here at all? They could exchange cargo anywhere.

That had been the first clue, and once alerted, Kirahe had decided to investigate further and this particular ship was just a little bit peculiar. For one thing, it seemed to be rather advanced in its equipment, particularly its sensor suite. Not impossible by itself, after all, having good sensors could be a life-saver, especially in the Terminus, where piracy was a common occurrence. The ship also seemed very well maintained, despite being seemingly old. Again, not conclusive, but it started to add up. Then there were the cargo hatches. A lot of them, all along the side of the hull. Useful, if you wanted to move a lot of cargo at once. But when they exchanged cargo with another humans ship that was about to depart they only used one hatch. Curious, and so inefficient. The ship also had a few GARDIAN lasers, again, not uncommon in the Terminus, but these were not placed quite right. There were gaps in the defences, as though a few GARDIAN emplacements were missing from the grid. So, he had watched, had collected data, had analysed. And now he was sure.

 _Not freighter. Mass not quite right for volume, hull too strong, internal divisions? Probably. Sensors too good, see too much use, even when in orbit._ _Hatches don't access cargo space. Probably cover weapons, more GARDIAN lasers than shown. Still, very good fake impression, very professional. Question: if not freighter, then what? Pirate? Unlikely. Ship too well maintained, equipment too modern, too expensive. Besides, if pirate, would trade slaves, would interact, or not come here at all. Not pirate. Warship. USM Warship in Torfan. Six months since Skyllian Blitz. Coincidence? Unlikely.  
_

Kirahe hesitated. He really shouldn't be doing this. If the humans intended to take action against the batarian raiders, the STG would want to know. What they would decide was anyone's guess. They might decide to sit back and watch, but they might also decide to interfere, leak the information. The resulting uproar would probably stop the humans, but then again it might not. If he informed the turians, they would almost certainly try to stop it, which might lead to renewed hostilities. That would never do. He could simply do nothing, wait for events to develop, or not. That would be the safe course of action.

And yet... It was so tempting. So very tempting to give just a tiny little push in the right direction. His crew would support him in simply doing nothing. That was an acceptable course of action. As for the rest, they would never know. Kirahe knew how to cover his tracks. After all, this was his ship. He knew its systems better than anyone.  
He touched the console, collected information from a dozen different files, compressed it into a single file. The next time he sent an update to the turian patrol, this message would be included, but it would never reach the turians. Instead, it would bounce off the relay and be reflected back into Torfan space where it would reach the lone human ship. After that, it would be up to the humans.

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 **Kirahe was, of course, a canon ME character. This is a few years earlier, so he isn't a captain yet. I used Mordin's speech patterns for his thoughts, even though most salarians don't talk like that. I'm using the assumption that their thoughts are very rapid, but that most of them deliberately slow down their speech to be better understood by other species.**


	2. The General

**Mass Effect is the property of Bioware. 20th Century Fox owns the Alien/Predator franchise.**

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 **HNV Blade of Destiny, One jump away from Torfan, six days later  
**

"Any news in our latest STG update?"

"The batarians are pushing several shiploads of cargo through, sir. They seem to be anticipating a lot of business."

Adrian Victus snarled something inaudible. His eyes swept over the bridge consoles and the crewmembers operating them, looking for something, anything, to vent his anger on. The bridge looked immaculate as always and the crew was performing its duties with admirable efficiency.

"Is there any sign that there are turians among the cargo?"

"No, sir." Captain Drastion knew his commanding officer well enough to understand what he wanted to hear, but the answer was the same as always. The batarians avoided trading in turians. They never hit a turian colony and if they found turians in a system they hit, or aboard a merchant ship they captured, they usually left them alone or killed them on the spot. Still, there were exceptions to every rule and Victus had hoped to find at least on or two turians among the slaves.

"As usual."

"Yes, sir."

Victus cursed again. He had known what to expect when he took command of this patrol. It was arguably the least popular command in the Hierarchy, which was probably why Victus had received it. As advantageously situated as the Torfan relay was, its function as a haven for pirates and slave traders had turned it into a major security headache. Because much of the trade that went on there would have been illegal in Citadel Space and armed conflicts broke out on a regular basis, the Citadel Council had requested that the Hierarchy maintain a fleet presence in the connecting system. However, Torfan itself did not fall under Citadel law. Therefore, the detachment was under strict orders not to enter that system. Their duty was to guard the mass relay, check the cargo of any trader entering Citadel Space, and generally ensure that whatever happened in Torfan, stayed in Torfan.

Victus had known all this when taking command. Still, he had cherished the hope that he might be able to make a more positive contribution. Before he had left, the Primarch had adjusted the rules of engagement slightly to reflect a more aggressive stance against the slavers: While the fleet was forbidden from attacking slavers in general, any attempt to traffic in turian slaves would be considered sufficient provocation to break the Citadel Council's orders. With this new set of instructions, Victus had hoped to be able to smash the slavers. After all, the Hierarchy was known for it's all-or-nothing approach to warfare. No-one would be particularly surprised if the trade of a few turian slaves let to a massive response that wiped out all slave traders in Torfan.  
Victus had pulled as many strings as he could and managed to get an STG reconnaissance vessel inserted in Torfan space. The salarians would monitor anything and everything that went on and might be able to provide him with the excuse he needed. Unfortunately, it seemed that the batarians had been warned in advance. The only turians seen in Torfan were either pirates, mercenaries or just shady traders. In a last, desperate effort, Victus had asked the STG to start checking food supplies in the hope that by tracing dextro-aminoacid-based food, he would be able to find some turian slaves. The only effect seemed to have been that the raiders had stopped selling quarian slaves as well as turians. Not that the suit-rats, with their non-existent immune systems, made for very good slaves in any case, but it had reduced some of the pressure on the Migrant Fleet, which, in turn, reduced the number of quarian incursions into Citadel Space. It could be called a victory of sorts, but certainly not the one that Victus had been hoping for.

"So, it's just salarians and asari?"

"A few Drell and Elcor as well," Drastion said. "but the last batch seems so consist mainly of humans."

"Humans?"

"Yes, sir. It appears that the rumours were right. The slavers were keeping the captives from their raids in the Verge locked up somewhere until the situation became less tense. Now they are moving them to the market."

"I see."

Victus did, indeed, see. The massive raid on the new human colonies in the Skyllian Verge had occurred about six months earlier. While initially successful, the raiders had been stopped cold at Elysium and had withdrawn, taking with them a considerable amount of looted property as well as a large number of human slaves. The consequences had been surprising. This was not the first time the humans had been attacked in this fashion. More than a decade earlier the small human colony on Mindoir had been attacked and destroyed. The Alliance of United Systems had protested but agreed that the colonists, who had decided to settle outside the protection of the United Systems Military, had voluntarily taken a large risk. Attacks on other, similar colonies had likewise been ignored. This time things were different. The Settlements in the Verge were not independent entities but officially sanctioned by the human government. They had representatives in the General Assembly. The latter organisation had made it abundantly clear that it was one thing for alien pirates to attack a bunch of fools who had willingly placed themselves at risk, but a completely different story when they dared to attack territory that the human government had formally claimed as its own.

Aftershocks had rippled through Citadel Space for months, with the newly appointed human ambassador, Donnel Udina, practically breathing fire on the Presidium as he raged against the citadel races in general and the batarians in particular. It had put the council in an awkward position where they were stuck defending actions that were, in the end, indefensible. But the batarians were a citadel species and the humans were not. As long as the Batarian Hegemony could hide behind the fiction that these raids were the work of private individuals, unconnected to the batarian military, the Council would not, could not, abandon its allies, however distasteful they might be. And the batarians had covered their tracks reasonably well. According to the official story, it was pirates from the Terminus who had carried out the raid and any involvement by subjects of the Hegemony was surely limited to a handful of 'upset individuals' who had been 'displaced' by the 'aggressive human expansion'. Eventually, things had calmed down, the Hegemony had made some token reparations because it 'regretted the misguided actions of some of its people', the human rhetoric had been dialled down, and things had seemed to be on their way back to normal.

Among turians, feelings had been mixed. No right minded turian could approve of the Hegemony and its sanctimonious attitude. Then again, humans weren't exactly popular either and many turians would, at least in private, have admitted to a certain amount of satisfaction that the arrogant newcomers had been burned this way. Most of all, people had been worried. If the humans decided to strike back, as seemed likely, the Hierarchy would be in the same untenable position as the council: forced by treaty commitments to defend the batarians. That would mean open warfare with the United Systems Military, and, despite all bravado, that was not a prospect the turians looked forward to. The Hierarchy had studied its short conflict with the USM carefully, and identified many weak spots in its order of battle and doctrine. Steps had been taken to remedy those defects, but that didn't change the fact that the humans had given the Hierarchy a very unpleasant shock, the likes of which they would prefer to avoid in the future.

But months had passed and the humans had done nothing. They had strengthened their fleet in the Verge and increased the number of patrols. The handful of non-human traders who entered human-controlled space had reported being stopped and searched repeatedly by human warships, but that had been all. As a result, the Hierarchy had been able to relax a bit, but now Victus started to wonder. How much did the humans know? Did they understand the way the slave trade functioned? Humans were newcomers on the galactic scene, but by now they had been around for twenty years and their traders could be found in both the Terminus and Citadel Space. Victus did not deceive himself that those traders would at least occasionally talk to government officials. Once the batarians sold their captives it would only be a matter of time before human slaves started showing up in the Terminus. Sooner or later the human government would find out. What would they do then? They might be unwilling to attack the Hegemony, which was at least nominally supported by the Citadel Council. But would they show the same restraint when dealing with the Terminus?

 _Suppose the United Systems Military invades the Terminus? The Hegemony would protest, but would they go to war? Unlikely, especially if they have to do it on their own. So the batarians would appeal to the Council, but what could they do? The humans aren't subject to council regulations. If they want to move into the Terminus, only force of arms can stop them. Would the Council go to war? More importantly, would we?_

It was possible but unlikely. There were some turians who were hoping for a rematch to wipe out the humiliation of the Relay 314 incident, but they were a minority. Most were sensible enough to understand that hurt feelings were insufficient reason to goto war.

 _So we don't interfere, which means the batarians will have to back down. That means the humans can do as they please. It would weaken them in the end, fighting endless campaigns so far from home, but they will destabilize the Terminus. No way to tell which way Omega will jump. The mercs won't want to fight the United Systems. Too many losses, not enough profit, but they may have no choice if Aria decides to back the pirates. Either way, it will spill over into Citadel Space, and we get to clean up the mess._

That would never do. Victus briefly considered his options. He could report this latest development to Palaven command and ask for permission to enter Torfan. If he could liberate the human captives it would be an incredible diplomatic coup for the Hierarchy and might go a long way toward normalizing relations with the United Systems. Of course, it would also permanently damage their relationship with the Hegemony but, in the end, one had to make a choice. As far as Victus was concerned that choice was easy. Despite their bad start, the United Systems would make for more palatable allies than the Hegemony.

He allowed himself to daydream a little. _General Victus, the turian who fixed the mistakes of the past and brought humanity into the Citadel Council's fold. Make way, Fedorian, here comes the new Primarch!_ It was an amusing fantasy, but he knew perfectly well that it would never happen. Apart from the fact that he didn't have the slightest taste for politics, he would never get permission for such a move. The Hierarchy would not risk the political backlash of invading the Terminus even to liberate citizens of its asari and salarian allies. It would certainly not do so for its recent enemies. Besides, he didn't have the resources. Attacking Torfan and destroying the slaver colony was something he could do with the forces under his command, but in order to save anyone, he'd have to launch a ground campaign and he didn't have anywhere near the required number of soldiers for that. The only alternative would be to bombard the colony, almost certainly killing all captives in the process. That would NOT endear him to the humans who had already demonstrated what they thought about their people being killed in orbital bombardments.

So, no heroic rescue. Just more waiting and hoping that common sense would prevail and that the United Systems government would refrain from sending its fleets on a roaring rampage of revenge throughout the Terminus. Unless of course... The thought suddenly came to him.

 _What if the humans know more? What if they know exactly how the slave trade works. What if they know about_ Torfan's _function as a slave market? No need to search half the Terminus for your people, if you know that they'll all pass through one system. If they could get the timing right, after the slaves have left the Hegemony, but before they are sold and moved on, that moment would be... Just about NOW._

"General! Message from Torfan, it's the Salarians"

"What? They just send us a message. The next one isn't due for another two days."

"Sir, it says: USM ships entering Torfan from Attican Traverse. Ship count: 20+."

For a moment, Victus stood as frozen. If he didn't know any better, he might have believed in prescience. He had just been thinking- No, no time to wonder.

"Alert all ships! Get me direct communications to the Citadel and Palaven Command."

"Yes, sir." Drastion moved to obey but stopped as a new warning flashed across his haptic display. "General, the relay is activating. Incoming transit from Torfan."

 **-o-o-o-**

In a brilliant display of light, the mass relay activated and more than a hundred small contacts appeared on the turian sensor displays.

"Sir, I make it at least one hundred fighters and a dozen large, shuttle-sized craft. Identification coming up now: mixed force: USM fighters F-302 and SA-23. Shuttles are of unknown design. Sir, we are getting massive jamming. Very powerful. It's coming from those shuttles. They're cutting us off from the relay.

"Specialized craft then. Fast enough to accompany the fighters, but with the volume to mount heavy electronic warfare equipment."

"Sir, do we engage?"

"No." Victus stared at the sensor screen. "They're not advancing against us, so let's not start another war just yet. Try to open communications."

"Yes, sir." One of the communication techs spoke up. "General Victus, we're getting a message."

"Put it on speaker."

Within seconds a new voice spoke up, speaking words that a turian vocal system could never reproduce. A moment later the translation scrolled over the screen

"This is groupleader Ichijo Eika calling turian fleet. Do you copy?"

Victus glanced at the communication tech and nodded. The tech touched his display.

"This is HNV Blade of Destiny. Go ahead, groupleader."

The same voice continued.

"This is a message from the United Systems Military for the commanding officer of the turian squadron. We are attacking the pirate base in Torfan at this time. This attack is against the pirates in Torfan, not against Citadel Space. The United Systems have no quarrel, I repeat: no quarrel, with the Citadel Council or the Turian Hierarchy. We ask you, therefore, not to intervene. However, we have blocked the relay connection from both ends and we have orders to destroy any Hierarchy vessel that does not comply with this request and attempts to approach the relay. Do you copy all that?"

Victus leaned forward and activated is own communication link.

"This is General Victus aboard HNV Blade of Destiny. Message received and understood."

He closed the channel, then looked around. "Well now, this is an interesting development."

"Sir," Captain Drastion stared at him. "What do we do?"

"Do, captain? Why should we do anything?"

For a moment, the captain seemed lost for words.

"General, we have to stop them. I mean, we cannot let them do this!"

"And how do you suggest we go about stopping them, captain?" Drastion looked at him as though he had lost his mind, but before the flag-captain could answer, Victus continued. "More than a hundred fighters on this side of the relay. That means there is at least one fleetcarrier on the other side. One carrier, figure at least four of their destroyers as escorts. Plus whatever they brought along to deal with the raiders, pirates and other trash in Torfan. But it doesn't stop there. You can bet your life savings that they're locking down the Terminus connection as well, so they'll probably send a similar number of fighters there, that means two carriers, at least. Plus escorts. Besides, they clearly planned this in advance. They knew we were here. Do you really believe they wouldn't assign adequate firepower to deal with us? Or do you think they're just bluffing and will back down if we ignore their warning?"

Victus turned back toward the display and watched the swarm of human fighter craft that was now circling the relay.

"No. It's no coincidence they show up now, just as the batarians are moving their human captives. They must have planned this for months and you don't do that unless you're willing to see it through. So, what happens? We move on the relay. That means fighting our way through these fighters, then fighting our way through whatever they have on the other side, and then we still have to stop them from attacking the planet. Even if we succeed, it'll cost us hundreds, perhaps even thousands of lives. Not to mention that we may end up in another war. And for what? To protect a bunch of pirates, slavers, smugglers, and other scum? Absolutely not."

"But sir, what's the alternative?" Drastion seemed to have recovered from his earlier astonishment. "If we stand by and let this happen, the Hegemony will-"

"Will do what? The Hegemony is not involved, captain. Torfan is part of the Terminus. The Hegemony is not being attacked, so why should they do anything?"

"Oh, for Spirits' sake!" It was not often that turian discipline broke down, but Captain Drastion was clearly reaching the limits of his self-control. "General, you know as well as I that is a load of Varren shit. There are at least half a dozen Hegemony ships in Torfan at any given time. They may not be broadcasting their identity, but that doesn't make it less true. Between those ships and the settlement, I bet half the highest-caste batarian families have a relative of some kind in Torfan. And they're about to be slaughtered if we do nothing."

Turians didn't have eyebrows. For the first time, Victus felt the lack. He had once seen a human raise one of them and it had perfectly conveyed the sentiment he now wished to express.

"How can you say that, captain? Surely, you know as well as I that no member of the Hegemony's establishment would EVER be involved in the kind of shady deals that take place in Torfan. Why, they have told us so themselves! No, I really don't see how they could complain about the deaths of a few pirates and smugglers, none of whom were Hegemony subjects." He reconsidered. "On second thought, I suppose they might be a bit upset about the humans destabilizing the Terminus, but honestly, Torfan is only barely in the Terminus. As long as the humans restrict themselves to this one action, I doubt there will be many long-term consequences. Aria T'Loak will certainly not complain. If Torfan is wiped out, that only means more trade going through Omega. Besides, to interfere, we'd have to enter Torfan space, which we have been forbidden by the Council. If I remember correctly, it was the Hegemony that insisted on that. No captain, we will do absolutely nothing. Any action would have to be authorized taken by Palaven command or the Council. It's a shame that with the humans jamming the connection we cannot contact either of them."

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 **A/N:  
**

 **In my last story, the humans were handicapped because they could not control large formations of fighters unless they had a carrier in-system. I used the method we saw in Battlestar Galactica, where a shuttle accompanies the fighters and provides command and control, to remedy this. Basically, these shuttles serve as AWACS, EW platforms, ELINT etc.  
**

 **Ichijo Eika is an expy from Sky Girls (No, the USM don't have teenaged girls in skintight bunny-suits flying fighters, I just happened to like that character.) Some people may recognize her speech. This is actually the message that the Rhodesian airforce sent to Zambia during the 'Green Leader' raid. I just changed the names. You can find the details on Wikipedia, or alternatively, just look for John Edmond's 'Green Leader song' on youtube.  
**

 **In ME2, Jacob discussed the corsair program. They seemed the best ships to gather intel on Torfan.** **I always regretted that we didn't see them in the games. For much of what you do, they would have been more useful than the Normandy, which is just way too obvious.  
**

 **As to whether this story qualifies as a cross-over. It's actually a bit of grey territory. I submitted it as a cross-over, mainly to stay in the same category as the first two. Don't worry, the xenomorphs and the Yautja will be back. And, yes, I plan on releasing the xenomorphs on the Citadel eventually.**


	3. The Raider

**Mass Effect belongs to Bioware and EA.**

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 **Torfan**

Bray was a very lucky batarian. In fact, he had been so lucky this day that he had spent several minutes murmuring half-remembered prayers that his mother had taught him during his early youth. However, not before he had shut down all active systems on his shuttle and turned it into a piece of shape debris that would hopefully go unnoticed. After all, you couldn't rely on divine intervention alone. Divine intervention, in this particular case, had taken the form of a supply run to Torfan while their ship, the Towering Strength, discharged its drive core in the local gas giant. That job, which otherwise would have been a bore, had placed Bray in a shuttle, rather than either ground side, or on board the Towering Strength. Bray's luck had been compounded by the orbital mechanics, which had placed the shuttle on the far side of the gas giant, just as the mass relay activated and deposited the first wave of United Systems' warships in the system. **  
**

The first wave of human ships had consisted primarily of small frigates, which swarmed out of the relay. Within seconds, they had been followed by what appeared to be two dreadnoughts. Then communication arrays across the system lit up as they registered an incoming transmission.

"This is Admiral Lindholm of the United Systems Military to all vessels in Torfan space. You will stand down your ships and prepare to be boarded. Any attempt to either leave the system or resist will be met with lethal force. This is your only warning. I repeat..."

That had been enough for Bray to shut down every active system he could find. He had no intention of being boarded. This same shuttle had been used to transport human captives down to the surface and a simple DNA analysis would show that. He could readily imagine the human response to that discovery and felt no desire to experience it in reality. Fighting in a cargo shuttle was not an option either. Neither was running. The humans were between him and the mass relay. His only chance of leaving the system would be to return to the Towering Strength, but it seemed unlikely that the captain would be willing to sit still and wait for Bray to dock. So, hiding was his only reasonable course of action.

With his active sensors shut down, his ability to follow what happened was limited, but even passive sensors showed a grim picture. The human frigates quickly entered the planetary orbitals. Several cargo ships that lit of their drives never even broke orbit as precision fire took out their engines, leaving them helplessly adrift. The other shipmasters clearly learned from that and didn't even attempt to move, signalling their compliance instead. Meanwhile, the frigates continued onwards, now spreading out over the system, including the gas giant, which had become the temporary home for both the Towering Strength and Bray's little shuttle.

Three frigates, operating in a loose formation swept around the gas giant at high speed, and Bray continued praying fervently that they would overlook his little shuttle. Either his prayers were answered, or the humans were just too busy to notice him. Perhaps both. In any case, none of the frigates paid the slightest bt of attention to him. Instead, they focused on the Towering Strength, which had discharged its core a few hours previously and was still in orbit.

The Towering Strength lit up her drives and started to accelerate away, but the captain might as well have stayed in orbit and accepted his fate. The human frigates intercepted her while she was still pulling away from the gravity well, closing to point blank range as they fired into the engines. The Towering Strength, despite her name, wasn't really a warship. Designed -officially- for patrol duties and customs inspections and -unofficially- for raiding, she was fast and could carry a considerable cargo. Unfortunately, starting from an orbital motion it would take time to accelerate and neither her weapons nor her shields or armour were designed to stand up against real warships. Desperate return fire damaged one of the frigates, but half the Strength's thrusters failed, sending the ship, spinning uncontrollably, back into the gravity well.

 _So much for getting out of here._

The mass relay lit up again and delivered a new wave of human ships. No less than three human carriers entered the system, surrounded by their escorts. Even before they had fully cleared the relay, a third wave arrived. This one consisted of mostly cruiser-sized vessels, which immediately accelerated away from the relay on an intercept course with Torfan's only inhabited planet. Behind them, the two human warships, which had entered the system with the first wave, span around. Bray looked at his sensor data in amazement. They were big, bigger than any cruiser he had ever seen, though on closer inspection not quite the size of a dreadnought. But what was truly amazing was the speed at which they manoeuvred, which would have been quick, even for most cruisers. Manoeuvring thrusters flared again and both ships stopped, their main batteries aimed directly at the relay. Around them, a group of six smaller ships, about typical cruiser size, performed the same manoeuvre. Their intent was clear. Even if someone had managed to call for help, any attempt to reinforce Torfan would fly straight into the concentrated fire of the human warships.

Meanwhile, the human carriers launched wave after wave of fighters. The mass relay spun up once more and within moments about a hundred of them disappeared from local space. For long seconds the relay was quiet, then the process repeated itself.

 _Where do they think they're going?_ Bray quickly decided that it didn't matter. There were still plenty of human ships in Torfan. Enough to destroy his little shuttle a million times over the moment it got spotted. Fortunately, none of them seemed to be aware of his existence and Bray very much intended to keep it that way.

 **-o-o-o-**

It took some work, but eventually, Bray managed to obtain a feed from the local satellite network, part of which was still operational. That gave him a better of view of what happened around the planet. It wasn't looking good. All resistance in space had ceased. The satellites were tracking several wrecks and the surviving ships had clearly decided to surrender and were being boarded. Meanwhile, over twenty human warships, each the size of a cruiser, were approaching the planet, their speed too high to put them into orbit. For Bray, it was a fascinating sight. He'd been part of several raids, though never an operation on this scale. Still, he could be considered to be a veteran of planetary assaults.

Conventional wisdom held that holding the orbitals gave you the upper hand over anyone on the ground. After all, 'holding the high ground' was generally considered a good thing and it didn't get any higher than a ship in orbit, which had a perfect view of its target. On top of that, everything you fired downward toward the planet would have gravity on its side, whereas anything the planet fired back at you had to climb out of the gravity well. Conventional wisdom was, as usual, wrong, or to put it more correctly, it was incomplete. First of all, unless you wanted whatever you fired toward the planet to slowly spiral inward, you needed to stop the orbital motion first and make it go straight down. That required a lot of energy, negating the advantage of shooting into a gravity well. For mass accelerators with their extremely high projectile velocity that was no problem, but mass accelerators had no problem shooting out of a gravity well either. Even the advantage of the higher vantage point was dubious. Sure, from orbit, you could easily see and hit targets planetside, but first, you needed to find them. After all, anyone on the ground had a whole planet to hide on. Meanwhile, a ship in orbit was visible to anyone who bothered to look up. What was worse, it was locked in a trajectory that could be predicted in advance by anyone with a basic calculator and the science of a pre-space civilisation.  
So, holding the orbitals only worked if you were A) shooting at fixed targets that had been identified in advance, or, B) you had someone ground side to mark the targets for you, or, C) if you didn't care if you turned large areas to rubble.

Torfan had active defences. They weren't all that good and they were all in fixed locations but still enough to cause any invader a serious headache. Of course, if the humans were willing to simply exterminate the colony that wouldn't matter, but there were a lot of human slaves down there who would be killed as well. Turians might accept that sort of collateral damage as the price of victory, but humans were reported to be a bit more cautious and had already shown their dislike of orbital bombardments during their brief war with the Hierarchy. But if they didn't want to crack the colony open from orbit, they'd have to land and Torfan's defences were good enough to turn any landing attempt into a slaughter. The question was: did the humans know.

Apparently, they did. Infrared contacts flared up on his viewscreen around each of the ships as they sped toward the planet, within seconds, the ships changed course, veering away sharply in a manoeuvre clearly designed to evade incoming fire from the planet, if there had been any. Behind them, the new infrared sources started to move, streaking downward toward the planet below at a speed that no shuttle pilot would attempt. _Missiles._ The United Systems Military was known for favouring archaic technology, and give credit where it was due, they seemed to be able to make it work. _  
Like now!_ As the missiles approached the planet, the defences opened fire, lasers from a dozen GARDIAN batteries crisscrossed through Torfan's thin atmosphere in an attempt to stop them. They were doing quite well, and Bray could see the individual missiles disappearing from the sensors. Unfortunately, quite well just wasn't good enough. There were too many missiles and not enough laser platforms. Meanwhile, the surviving missiles changed course and accelerated sharply. Clearly, they had found whatever target they were searching for. More were wiped out by the lasers, but then the explosions started and Bray looked on in disbelieve as the first GARDIAN battery disappeared in fire and rubble, then the second, then the third. Either the United Systems Military had incredible intelligence on Torfan's defences, or they had...  
 _The sensors!_ If Bray had been human he would have face-palmed. The GARDIAN lasers used active sensors to track their targets. If the humans had a general knowledge of the frequencies at which they operated, which they could well have obtained through observation, or even bribery, the missiles could home in on those targeting beams. That was why they had changed course the moment the GARDIAN system opened fire. It was not a new concept and explained why fixed defensive positions were of limited value and why they typically held their fire until the last possible moment. That was why Torfan's heavy mass accelerator batteries had not even attempted to engage the human ships before they entered orbit. Of course, the humans would still need to deal with them, but with the GARDIAN system knocked out, that would be a lot easier.

New sensor contacts appeared. A wave of fighter craft that clearly intended to go down to the planetary surface. Larger and slower than the missiles, they still moved quickly and had spread out over a wide area to avoid presenting a convenient target. Normally, for a fighter or shuttle to enter a planet's atmosphere was a complicated manoeuvre to avoid losing control of the craft, but Torfan's atmosphere was so thin that it hardly mattered. There was no defensive fire this time. The mass accelerators were too large and clumsy and would have been of limited use against fighters and if any GARDIAN battery was still functional, its operators were sensible enough not te reveal it. Instead, a wave of fighter craft rose from the surface on an intercept course. Bray shook his head as he saw them. He had been on Torfan and he knew the status of its small fighter force. It was a mix of turian and batarian craft with a few asari and salarian designs thrown in for good measure. All together there was a decent number of them, but most of them were nearly obsolete, or just plain worn out. The pilots lacked discipline and there was little unit cohesion. A battle such as this could only end one way.

Now that they were at low altitude and the threat of heavy surface batteries was behind them, the human fighters reformed their formation, splitting into small, tight groups, a far cry from the mob-like swarm of their opponents, and opened fire at maximum range. The defenders tried to reply, but the lower quality of their equipment was clear from the start and their initial salvos were ineffective. The human squadrons threw themselves at their opponents, tearing through the formation while firing continuously, then braking sharply and turning back as soon as they broke through. In that first pass, the formation of the defenders, such as it was, was cut to pieces. Of course, the humans had lost a few fighters themselves, but their formations were still intact and the balance of losses was hopelessly lobsided. A second pas and the few surviving defenders broke, scattering in all directions with human fighters in hot pursuit. The battle had only lasted a few minutes, then the last defender was shot down and the human fighters, having lost less than ten percent of their strength reformed and continued toward the colony

They clearly knew what they were looking for and their intelligence must have been spot-on because it didn't take them long to find it. The infrared signature of missile drives appeared as they opened fire and again the planetary surface around the colony was dotted with explosions. Bray didn't even have to check what they had been aiming at. There was only one target on Torfan that warranted this kind of attack. A simple comparison to a map confirmed it. Torfan's heavy mass accelerators were now out of action as well, leaving the colony completely defenceless.

Much further away, the ships that had started the assault had turned back and were approaching the planet once more. This time they decelerated for a rendezvous in high orbit. This was something Bray recognized all too well. The invasion was about to begin.

 **-o-o-o-**

As Bray watched a stream of shuttles started to break away from the human warships, all headed toward the planet. It didn't take a tactical genius to understand what was going to happen. There were a lot of pirates and mercenaries on Torfan and they would put up a good fight, but with the enemy in full control of the system and clearly prepared for a ground battle, there was only one way this could end.

 _Halliat!_ The name was like a curse. _This is what we get for listening to that bastard!_  
The turian pirate had approached several senior batarian officers nearly a year ago with what seemed like the perfect plan. He wanted to attack the human colonies in the SKyllian Verge, but even after collecting a large number of independent pirates, he lacked the strength to pull it off. The Hegemony, or rather its fleet, could provide the extra firepower.  
The Hegemony's top military officials had jumped on his proposal. They too had been eyeing the human settlements, but while they had the strength to attack them, they needed a way to cover up their involvement. The presence of so many Terminus pirates provided them with the plausible deniability they needed. On top of that, he claimed he had contacts within the Hierarchy that would inform him of the movements of the turian fleet.

 _Fools! What did they think was going to happen._ Bray shook his head, trying to suppress his anger _Be honest. You were just as enthusiastic. A chance to show those arrogant newcomers who was boss. Besides, you didn't mind the extra money._ And that was the heart of the matter. Serving in the Hegemony military wasn't much fun, but it had these nice little perks. Even for a low-ranking member like Bray, the extra income from one successful raid was enough for several weeks worth of entertainment in the bars and brothels of any spaceport. A big raid like the SKyllian Blitz? Even before the captives had been sold, the loot had been enough to pay even the lowest ranking participant a year's income. Selling the slaves would have doubled that.  
 _Looks like that's not going to happen. Damnation, why didn't we think this through? So we got a bunch of human slaves. So what? For all the effort we spent, we could have_ _raided any number of independent colonies. No protecting fleet, no big government behind them. Just go in, take the loot, and get out. Don't even bother with taking people. Sure, slaves bring in big money, but it pisses everybody off. That's probably why the humans think they can get away with this. If they manage to liberate even a handful of slaves, they'll be heroes. Treaties be damned. No other government is going to go to war over this, no matter how many batarians they kill._

And that brought Bray to his own dilemma. A lot of batarians were going to die and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. The best he could hope for was to sit still, pretend very hard that he was a dead rock in space and wait for the humans to finish their business and depart. Then he could use the Mass Relay and get as far away from Torfan as he could.  
But go where? Back to the Hegemony would be the logical destination, but right now Bray didn't relish that thought very much. Not only were a lot of batarians going to die, but quite a few of those batarians had friends and relations in important places. And Bray would be the one to tell those friends and relations of their deaths. That was not an appealing thought. Bringers of bad news had a way of becoming part of the bad news.

 _No, nonono. No way. I didn't survive this just to get my head blown off by some angry upper caste moron who lost his darling little son in the attack. Let someone else bring them he bad news. Mommy's little boy Bray is going to keep a very low profile for a very long time._

But that left the question of what to do next. If he couldn't return to the Hegemony officially, he couldn't contact his family either. Once news of the attack reached the Hegemony his family would assume he's been either killed or captured. That was acceptable. If they thought he was dead, he'd be considered a hero and there would be no retaliation against his relatives. That was the safest course of action for everyone. So, where else could he go?

Bray laughed mirthlessly. The Terminus was only one relay jump away. It was big, there was no central government and most people learned not to ask questions. One batarian in a shuttle would attract little attention. he could sell the shuttle for some easy money and then plan his next move. He was a soldier. He had training, skills. There were always jobs for people like him.

His decision taken, Bray leant back into his seat and watched as the assault unfolded. He might as well use the opportunity to learn something.

 **!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!**

 **AN:**

 **Sorry it took so long, but I was busy in real life and this chapter required several rewrites. I don't normally like kerb stomp battles and find it hard to write them in an interesting way, but in this case, it was necessary. It's a full-sized naval attack against a pirate stronghold and there is absolutely no need for the humans to pull any punches. Overwhelming force may be a bit of a cliche, but here it certainly applies. Of course, the tough part of the battle will take place mostly inside the colony and that will be a different story.  
**

 **Thanks to Chris Bunch. The first SciFI author I read who saw the problems with the "whoever holds the orbit has a huge advantage" concept.**

 **Bray would, of course, go on to become one of Aria's bodyguards. I guess he made the best of the situation.**

 **In the game, Halliat was human, but according to the background info, he was supposed to have been a turian. (Him being human doesn't make much sense anyway. He could have been batarian, but human?)**

 **Lindholm is a human admiral in ME3, she sacrificed 10 percent of her fleet to let the rest escape from the Reapers, so I chose her for a mission that is very much 'do what needs to be done'.**


	4. The Soldier

**Mass Effect belongs to Bioware and EA.**

 **!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!**

 **Torfan**

The turrets were firing again. That could only mean one thing: The humans were coming back for another assault. Rikus checked his assault rifle just to be sure he had a fresh thermal clip. The weapon was brand new, the latest version of the venerable Phaeston assault rifle and the first to use the new thermal clips that had recently been introduced in Citadel Space. Rikus liked the concept. Being able to just put in a new clip and continue fighting was very convenient for anyone who had been used to ducking for cover and waiting while his weapon cooled down. Unfortunately, the transition had been very recent and he still had to get used to the idea of watching the clip to see if it needed replacing.

Not that it would matter in the end _._ Rikus was a dead turian and he knew it. United System Military assault teams had landed all around the colony two hours ago and the battle had not been going well. There were a fair number of soldiers on Torfan, if you could call them that. Mercenaries like Rikus, pirates, and slavers, many of the latter either current or former Hegemony military. Some were well trained or at least experienced, others not so much. What they lacked above all was cohesion and the humans had exploited that weakness ruthlessly. The first wave of Marines had hit the ground firing and, covered by the guns and rockets of their dropships, they had quickly overrun the handful of bunkers that were supposed to form the colony's outer defensive perimeter. Once those were secured they had regrouped, possibly expecting a counterattack.  
That counterattack never materialised. Rikus could have told them that in advance. The small units in the outer perimeter had been left to rot. No-one inside the colony owed them much of anything and they certainly didn't intend to risk their lives to help them. As for retaking those positions, some attempt might have been made, if Governor Craldar, the colony leader, had been around to organise it, but the batarian was nowhere to be found and in his absence, there was no-one to organise the attack or persuade the various small-time leaders to cooperate.  
So, the humans had been left alone, giving them the opportunity to take care of their wounded and catch their breath while the second wave of shuttles landed outside the range of the colony's limited defensive systems. That wave had been a lot bigger and, instead of just dumping groups of infantry on the ground, it had brought the wheeled combat vehicles for which the humans had become famous. Rikus had been too young for military service during the Relay 314 incident, but like all turians, he had watched the combat footage; not only the recordings made by General Arterius doomed invasion force during the initial fighting but also the news coverage that the humans themselves had recorded when they retook the planet. Even then, watching it from the relative comfort of a classroom, Rikus had been impressed by the menace that exuded from the large, ugly vehicles as they slowly rolled across the battlefield. Somehow their very slowness and primitive nature had seemed to make them more threatening than the sleek, streamlined shape of a fighter craft or a shuttle could ever be. In fact, they had so impressed the Hierarchy, that they had begun to develop similar equipment of their own, using the krogan Tomkah as a template. Now, facing them in person, Rikus had learned two things. One, they were as terrifying in real life as they had been on-screen and two, their slowness had largely been an illusion. In fact, they could manoeuvre extremely quickly when necessary and the humans had used that speed to maximum effect. The combat vehicles had charged forward while the dropships hovered overhead. Within minutes, they had reached the landing platforms and disgorged their infantry, which had proceeded to occupy the hangars and control tower. That was where Rikus had first seen action today. It had not been a pleasant experience.

 _"Back! Back into the hangar!" Rikus turned around without further prompting and ran, following two batarians and an asari, all that was left of the dozen mercenaries that their unit had started the battle with. Behind him, the ground shook as something, most likely one of the cargo shuttles that had been sitting in the open, exploded. From his left, the ominous shape of one of the human vehicles appeared. He didn't even try to shoot. Whatever else you could say about these monstrosities, one thing was absolutely certain: The armour on those things was too thick for assault rifles to penetrate and Rikus had no rockets with him. Something flashed at the front of the_ _turret and a line of small impacts appeared_ _on the ground in front of him, throwing up dust. By some miracle, the bullets missed him completely, but the asari was less lucky. Rikus would never know how many times she had been hit, but her biotic barrier collapsed within a fraction of a second and the rest of the bullets had torn her to shreds.  
_

Rikus shook his head, trying to rid himself of that image. He was no stranger to the effects of modern weapons on living tissue, but it had not been a pleasant sight. Somehow, he and the batarians had managed to reach the safety of the hangar, but the humans had given them no respite. Their heavy guns had smashed the hangar doors open and infantry had poured in guns blazing. The mercenaries had fought back, reinforced by a few mechanics that had taken shelter in the hanger, but they were outnumbered at least three to one and the distribution of firepower was even more one-sided. Fortunately, there was an underground connection between the hangar and the main colony and one of the mechanics turned out to be something of a demolitions expert who had managed to collapse the tunnel behind them before the humans could pursue.

That had been pretty much the end of any resistance in the spaceport, which by now was fully under human control. The surviving mercenaries, as well as the colony's semi-permanent security force, had regrouped as best they could to wait for the inevitable assault. Unfortunately, they all knew that that assault was coming soon and could only end one way. If the humans wanted the colony, they could take it. The only remaining questions were: How long would it take them? How much would it cost them? And how much would be left of the colony by the time they were finished? With all of the planet, except for the colony itself, under human control, there was nowhere to run or hide, so the only choices were either fighting it out or surrender. One of the mercenary leaders had suggested surrendering but had promptly been gunned down by a batarian who might as well have had a sign 'Special Intervention Unit' painted on his armour for all that he pretended to be just another pirate. That had been the end of that particular suggestion. Most of the mercenaries would probably have been willing to risk surrender, but by now their numbers were severely depleted, whereas the batarian security guards were still near full strength. Even worse, the mercenaries came from half a dozen different organisations, they didn't trust each other and certainly couldn't count on each other for support. No, surrender was out. They had discussed using the slaves as hostages in order to negotiate transport off-world, but that idea had been rejected as well. For one thing, no-one knew how the humans would react to such a ploy. Neither the Hierarchy nor the Hegemony would have accepted that kind of bargain, but the policies of the Alliance of United Systems were still largely unknown. Rikus suspected that it might have worked, but only to a certain extent. The mercenaries might have been allowed to leave, but he found it hard to believe that the humans would be willing to let the slavers and pirates go. After all, this was a retaliation strike, not just a rescue operation. It was all academic anyway. Even though the governor wasn't showing his face, it was the batarians that controlled Torfan and for them releasing the slaves was simply not an option. They represented too much money.

So, now they were stuck, waiting for the humans to attack the colony itself. They had a plan, of sorts. They would defend the gatehouse for as long as possible. The door mechanism had been disabled, so the humans would have to blast their way in, which in turn would seal the airlocks behind the doors, slowing them down. It would funnel the humans into killing zones where the defenders could slaughter them at leisure. Even if they managed to break into the gatehouse, the humans would have to fight their way through a corridor to the colony itself. Once they were there, they would find themselves in a maze of underground passages and rooms, a deathtrap for any attacking force. This, so the plan went, would eventually demoralise the humans to the point where they would be unwilling to continue the fight.

 _And if you believe that I have some lovely woodlands on Tuchanka for sale._ As far as wishful thinking went, this idea won first prize. One of the tenets of turian military philosophy was that you should never let personal antipathy get in the way of an honest appraisal of your enemies. Whatever the flaws of the Hierarchy's military strategists, and they had proven to have many, they had held true to that principle. Every young turian who had gone through military training since the Relay 314 incident had the details of that conflict drilled into their brains and while the instructors might dislike humans intensely, either for personal reason or just on general principle, none would have underestimated the human willingness and ability to fight. As long as humans saw a way to win, they would keep fighting and as long as they kept fighting, they were absolutely lethal. Here they simply couldn't lose, unless they failed to try.

And now they were making the first attempt. The handful of turrets outside the main gate were in action, shooting at vehicles that were partially hidden behind buildings or terrain features. One of the vehicles took multiple hits and came to a halt, its armour ripped open. It made no difference. At this stage, there were simply more targets than turrets and they were shooting back, silencing the defensive fire. Next, they would be coming for the gate itself.

 **-o-o-o-**

"They're coming!"

Rikus threw a look at one of the few working monitors. The humans had spent considerable time blinding the colony. Most of the outer sensor network had been destroyed. Fortunately, a few small optical sensors near the still worked and gave them an idea of what was happening outside.

Humans in combat armour were approaching, crouched low, their weapons sweeping back and forth as they searched for threats. behind them, the vehicles had taken up positions, their guns trained on the colony entrance. They could have spared themselves the trouble. With the last defensive turret gone, the colony was helpless. From now on, any fighting would be done on the inside.

The first humans reached the gate and ripped open one of the access panels. That too was a waste of time. Those panels had been disconnected from the gate's mechanism, which could no longer be operated from the outside. Clearly, the humans understood that too because they wasted very little time fiddling with the locking mechanism. After a few seconds they gave up in disgust and Rikus could see, just from their posture that they were discussing the situation. Someone, clearly an officer made a short gesture and turned away from the gate, gesturing toward the waiting vehicles.

A few minutes passed without any change, then-

"What the fuck is that?"

Rikus sympathised with the other merc's statement. Several of the human combat vehicles were moving forward in pairs. Each pair seemed to have a large, boxlike structure fastened between them. As they rolled toward the colony, human soldiers stepped aside to give them clear access to the walls. The vehicles pushed forward, pushing the boxes all the way against the walls. Then the couplings disengaged and they reversed, leaving the boxes standing against the colony.

"OK, anybody? What the fuck are they doing?"

The optics had a poor angle, but Rikus could still see a little. Something seemed to be changing at the front as though some kind of foam was being used to seal the connection between the box and the wall-

 _Seal? Wait a-_

"They're airlocks!"

"What?"

"Look!" He gestured at the image. "They're fixing them to the wall. Then they can cut their way in and have their own little airlocks on the outside. No need to open the colony to vacuum. And no need to force the gate. They're not even bothering to breach here. They're going to hit the colony directly."

"Fuck."

The defenders looked at one another. There were more than twenty of them here behind the gate, ready to turn the airlock and the room behind it into a slaughterhouse. Now, they were useless.

"Alright," One of the batarians said. "They're still close to us. We'll need to spread out and wait for them where they cut through."  
He spoke briefly into his comm link. "We have the locations. Redeploying now. Not all of you. Six of you mercs stay here, guard the gate in case they try to come through here after all."

 **-o-o-o-**

The noise of gunfire echoed through the upper level of the colony. Rikus could easily recognise the unique sound of the rapid firing batarian shotguns. There had been a lot more of that in the beginning. Now the dominant sound was that of bursts of extremely rapid automatic fire and it was coming closer. Clearly, the humans hadn't given up on the main entrance yet. They just intended to open it from the inside. One of his fellow mercenaries, who had been standing at the inner door cursed, fired a quick shot into the corridor and then jumped back into the room.

"They're here!"

"How many?"

"How the fuck would I know? You think I'm gonna stand there and count? I got the first one straight through the helmet, but there have to be more." He slammed the inner door shut. Unfortunately, that wasn't going to help much. The humans were approaching from inside the colony through the corridor that connect the entrance with the rest of the colony. Not only did that mean that Rikus and the others were cut off, but they couldn't even lock the door. That door could only be locked from the inside, where the humans were. Not from the side with the airlock.

The door swung open and a burst of automatic fire came through. Fortunately, none of the mercenaries had been dumb enough to stand directly in front of the door. Rikus pulled out a grenade and tossed it through the opening. There was an explosion and he could hear several screams.

 _Got some! Not that it will matter in the end._

Clearly, two could play a game. The next thing he knew a small, cylindrical object flew into the room and landed on the floor where it seemed to balance on one of its short ends. Almost simultaneously, the humans outside slammed the door shut.

"Grenade!" Rikus dove behind a cargo container. The grenade seemed to jump up and exploded. He watched in fascination as several small, needle-like projectiles buried themselves into the wall. The container kept him safe, but not everyone had been that lucky. Two of the mercs were down permanently, a third was wounded and the humans were not about to give them time to recover. The door swung open again and they pushed into the room. One went down, a second, but they were shooting back and the mercs simply lacked the firepower to stop them. As Rikus watched, the last of his companions crumpled to the floor. He fired a quick burst, cutting down the last human in the room and jumped sideways, hiding in the corner of the room, next to the door, ready for the humans to push forward once more.

Rikus waited. He had known from the beginning of the battle that there would be little chance for survival and now he was certain that there was none. He had few regrets. The chance of dying in combat was something that he had accepted the day he chose to become a mercenary. He had no family to mourn him, or be ashamed that he was dying in defence of a bunch of pirates and slavers. In the end, there were worse ways. Better to die in a real battle, fighting real soldiers, than in a bar brawl on Omega.

The first human came around the corner. Rikus' talon tightened on the trigger, but the human dove to the ground and kept rolling in a move that no turian could have hoped to duplicate. Even as Rikus fired -and missed- he felt his legs being swept out from under him, pitching him face-first onto the floor. The Phaeston flew away and he scrambled after it, just touching the weapon as the first bullet slammed into his back. Rikus ignored the pain, tightening his grip on the rifle as he tried to roll over and face his enemy, but suddenly the weapon seemed unbearably heavy and his body wouldn't respond properly. A second round hit him, then a third. A boot appeared in his line of vision and kicked the rifle away from him. From somewhere far away he heard strange words, spoken in a strange, alien voice.

"Major Kyle? This is Shepard. I'm at the airlock. The entrance is secure. We'll be opening the gate in a moment."

It was the last thing he would ever hear.

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 **Thanks to Hang Tuah for suggesting a chapter like this. I had planned to switch directly to the fighing inside the colony, but it's better to have the transition as well.  
**

 **Throughout ME1, you keep busting into other people's facilities with minimum effort. In reality, most of your sidequests would have ended in failure, simply because those people would lock their doors. Forceful entry to a building in a vacuum requires either special equipment or blasting open the doors, but if you do the latter, airtight doors throughout the facility will close and you'll have to keep blasting them open.  
**

 **The grenade with the spikes is something I copied from the movie Eraser.**


	5. The Battlemaster

**Mass effect is the property of Bioware and EA. The Alien/Predator franchise belongs to 20th Century Fox**

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 _So, EA and Bioware have pulled the plug. There will be no Andromeda DLC and despite the vague promise of a new Mass Effect console game, sometime in the future, it seems as though the Mass Effect franchise has run its course._  
 _To be honest, my feelings are mixed. On the one hand, I love the universe the Bioware has created. On the other hand, the last two games were not living up to their heritage. In my personal opinion, the first game is still the best. It had a great story, a wonderful atmosphere and did a great job presenting its world. For me, the franchise peaked on Virmire, the first time I spoke directly with Sovereign. It made for such a great enemy. A Lovecraftian horror, utterly alien and completely merciless. The second game was still great and introduced some of the most memorable characters. Unfortunately, it started the progress of downgrading the reapers. Compared to Sovereign, Harbinger was just an obnoxious blowhard, who wouldn't shut up no matter how often I killed his proxy. Something that annoying just stops being scary after a while. Then we got ME3. It had some beautiful animations (thresher maw kills reaper) and I loved the multiplayer option, but it turned the reapers from impressive enemies into a moronic experiment, the ending was pathetic, and it spoiled some of the best characters. (Hi Samara, too bad you lost your brain between ME2 and ME3)._  
 _When ME:A came out, I was hopeful. It seemed a good way to give the franchise a new direction. But upon playing my opinion started to shift. There were too many glitches that required repeated updates. Many of the smaller sidequests amounted to stamp collecting, just running around a planet hoping that the next group of enemies will have a device that completes the set. I felt like I was playing an old Sierra game. And then we have the Remnant: Superpowerful technology build by people who seem to love Sudokus and mazes. They also have the weird habit of placing the on-switch in the most dangerous spot possible. That was a real let-down for me. So far, things in the ME franchise, even when built by aliens, tended to follow a certain logic. Hallways, rooms, corridors, control units, all more or less in the places where it makes sense to build them. The Remnant just turn their facilities into obstacle courses for no reason. (It doesn't even serve as a security measure. It just inconveniences the intruder a little bit.) Even the main character felt like a let-down. Shepard was bad-ass because he/she had worked hard to acquire skills and built a reputation, Ryder just happens to have an AI in his/her head. Instant Mary Sue._  
 _Don't get me wrong, I still enjoyed playing it. Bioware haven't lost their gift for world-building, I love the exploration aspects of the game, and you meet a lot of interesting characters. Still, it gave me the sad feeling that with a little more thought and care, it could have been so much better. So, like I said, mixed feelings. I would have loved to explore this new galaxy some more. I wanted to know what had gone wrong on the Quarian Ark and there were a bunch of other loose ends that I would have liked to tie up. Then again, perhaps it's better to end the franchise while it was still good, rather than letting it dwindle into mediocrity._

 _Ah well, I guess I'll just continue writing_

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It moved in utter silence, no betraying buzz or hum. Still, it moved and for a Krogan, the product of millions of years of the most brutal evolutionary selection process in the galaxy, that was more than enough to attract notice. Weyrloc Brack stood motionless, waiting for the small sphere to come floating down the corridor and pass the corner where he was hiding. It would notice him, of course, but as long as he didn't move, it would not regard him as a major threat and continue on its assigned task of mapping the underground maze that was Torfan. Brack barely suppressed a grin. Someone has seriously messed up that part of the programming.

The tiny drone moved forward, twisting on its axes to allow its sensors a full view of the surrounding area. It passed the corner-

Smash! Brack's fist sent it flying against the wall.

Now he grinned. It wasn't as good as smashing your fist into the face of a living being, but somehow there was something intensely satisfying about smashing the humans' little snoopers. Still, enjoyable as it was, it ultimately didn't matter. They seemed to have an endless supply of the things and even in its death it would have relayed Brack's presence to the operator and that meant that the humans had found them again. That was the third time in as many hours. His fireteam had been holding the stairs to the colony's ground level and racked up a pretty impressive kill score, fighting off several assaults, but there were just too many of the damn little pyjaks and -give credit where it was due- they didn't shy back from a brawl. So they had broken away, to make a stand at the next set of stairs, only for the process to repeat itself. Brack had lost count of the number of humans they had killed, but still, they came throwing bullets, explosives and ultimately soldiers at each position until they finally overran it.

Now they were in the lower levels, just above the slave pens. They had been driven away from the stairs, again and were holding position in the corridors. Somewhere far behind them, Craldar Gos'radah, the so-called governor of Torfan was cowering in whatever hiding place he'd managed to find for himself. Brack snorted. The pathetic weakling had had the nerve to insist that Brack's Blood Pack unit stay with him, 'to form a wall that would protect the governor's valuable person'.  
Brack smirked. If there was any value in Craldar he hadn't seen it. Just a useless sack of flesh and bones. If he managed to get hit by a bullet meant for someone else, the four-eyed bastard would have reached the peak of his usefulness for an entire lifetime. Still, he had money, and just enough sense to pay the Bloodpack on time. So now Brack found himself fighting through the tunnels of Torfan with a mixed group of Blood Pack soldiers. Batarian engineers, vorcha flamethrower teams, and a handful of picked Krogan mercs. Just the way he liked it. Four-eyes to push buttons, vorcha to mess things up and stop enemy bullets, and Krogan to do the actual thinking. Torfan hadn't been a bad post either. Things were reasonably quiet, most of the time, and what with all the slaves being moved through the place had some nice perks. Of course, it wasn't as entertaining as Omega, with its barely contained state of semi-anarchy. But then again, working for a snivelling little coward like Craldar was a lot easier than having to deal with Aria T'Loak's unpredictable temper. No, it had not been a bad post. Until now.

There was motion at the end of the corridor. Human soldiers, alerted by the demise of their drone, were approaching cautiously. Brack raised his Spikethrower, but hesitated. The humans had already demonstrated the amount of firepower they could bring to bear. An exchange of fire along the corridor seemed like a bad idea. What he needed was a way to close the distance. To get to point blank range, where his strength, bulk and the firepower of his shotgun would have the maximum effect.

"Hold fire, let them come forward."

The human soldiers advanced down the corridor in pairs, covering each other as they moved. It wasn't a bad tactic, but then again, under the circumstances no tactic could solve the fundamental problem that they had to move along a narrow path without cover. Area effect weapons like grenades or rockets would have been useful and Brack half expected them to use on or the other, but it didn't happen. Perhaps the humans had run out of them or perhaps they were hesitant to use them so deep underground for fear of triggering a cave-in. EIther way, they seemed to be relying exclusively on their rifles. A few steps more...

"NOW!"

The blood pack opened fire. Two, three humans went down in the initial salvo, but the ones behind them dove to the ground and returned fire. A batarian went down, riddled with bullet holes, a vorcha collapsed when one of his legs was shot out from under him. The humans were dying too, but they had the weight of numbers behind them as more and more poured into the corridor.

"Burner, MOVE!"

One of the vorcha stepped out into the corridor and unleashed a stream of liquid fire. Humans soldiers caught in its path screamed in agony, then either collapsed into smouldering heaps or ran away even as they burned, adding to the chaos.

"Push forward!"

The vorcha unleashed another wave of fire, then started down the corridor. Some of the humans tried to shoot him, but they were rushing their shots and vorcha took a lot of killing. At the other end of the corridor, a single human soldier stepped forward. With the flames inbetween it was tough to make out, but he appeared to be larger and bulkier, as though he was wearing some sort of heavy armour, and he seemed to be carrying a massive gun.

The human soldier fired without even raising the weapon to eye-level and the gun cut loose with a noise that drowned out both the roaring flames and the screams of the burning humans. The burst tore straight through the vorcha and hit the fuel tank he had been carrying on his back. The result was spectacular. One moment, a determined if not too bright vorcha was advancing down the corridor with his trusty flamethrower, the next moment a shrieking figure, wreathed in flames was running down that corridor, bouncing off the walls, spraying burning liquid in all directions.  
The human stood his ground, firing another burst that put the vorcha down for good.

Brack cursed. They'd encountered these weapons before. It took at least half a dozen eezo based guns to match the firepower of one of these human guns. If you didn't take them out right away, they completely dominated every firefight.

"Hack him!"

The last remaining batarian engineer in his unit lifted his omnitool, searching for a connection. He must have found something because his fingers started sliding over the interface.

"I have .. something here. Cannot be sure but.."

" I don't care, whatever it is, take it down."

"Shutting down... now!"

There was no visible effect, no sparks, no power surge as would be expected with normal weaponry, but the human soldier stumbled, one hand coming up to claw at his helmet.

"All of you, follow me!" Brack was already moving. Without waiting for his unit to fall in, he stormed down the corridor, bounding over the smouldering corpses and firing his Graal as he moved, desperate to close the distance. The human fell back, trying to get into cover around a corner, but krogan could move much faster than their bulk suggested and there was no way Brack was going to give him time to recover. Whatever the hack had done to the human's equipment, clearly his weapon was still functioning, for he opened fire again, spraying bullets all over the corridor. Brack felt two of them tear into his armour and flung himself to the side. WIthout even hesitating, he grabbed one of the vorcha behind him and flung the unfortunate creature bodily at the human.

By now the human had raised his weapon all the way to eye-level and his next salvo was far more accurate, nearly tearing the vorcha in half. Unfortunately for him, that did nothing to stop the momentum of the corpse, which slammed into him and toppled him backwards. Brack was on top of him before he could recover. He fired one shot into the human's stomach, then his Graal overheated, emitting a cloud of steam. Brack swore. There was no way to tell how long it would take the shotgun to cool down. He had been using the weapon a lot and heatsinks became unpredictable with repeated use. Nor could he avoid to wait. Already, he could hear a new group of human soldiers approaching. He looked around and his eyes fell on the heavy human weapon that had fallen next to the dead soldier.

The weapon wasn't any kind he was familiar with, but it had a barrel. That was all he needed. Brack placed one foot on the corpse's chest, grabbed the gun with both hands and pulled; hard.  
with a grating noise, the frame that held the strange weapon to the human's body came apart, leaving Brack to hold the weapon. It was big, much bigger than a normal rifle or shotgun, but for a krogan, that was just fine, if he could only figure out how to use it. After a moment's investigation, he found a simple handgrip protruding sideways from the left side of the barrel. The second grip was vertical, but off-set to the right of the firing mechanism. As Brack's fingers closed around it, he grinned. He had been worried about the shape of the trigger. Humans had small hands, with a thumb and four fingers. Krogan only had two fingers and their hands were much bigger. That could have been a serious problem. Fortunately, whoever had designed this weapon seemed to have been thinking ahead and instead of the single-finger trigger that their other weapons favoured, this one had a trigger that was as big as the entire grip. A human or asari could have squeezed it with all four fingers at once. Brack couldn't get both fingers around it, but one would do the trick. He pulled the trigger and fired an experimental burst in the general direction from which the humans seemed to be approaching. The roar of fire was impressive and from the size of the ammunition drum it seemed unlikely that he would be running out of ammo anytime soon. The only problem was the lack of a proper sight. There was a scope attached to the barrel, but it lacked a proper eyepiece. Instead, some sort of wire had connected it with the soldier's helmet, but that would be no use to Brack. Then again, a weapon like this didn't need much in the way of sights. Brack raised the weapon and fired a long burst toward the approaching soldiers. Most of the shots went wide, but a t least one of the soldiers stumbled and fell. Behind him, the few remaining Blood Pack mercs opened fire.

Again, bullets streaked back and forth along the corridor. With only the corpes of the slain for cover, the battle couldn't last long. Brack felt repeated hits slamming into his armour as he fired again and again, killing one human after another. With each victim his admiration for the weapon he held rose. No wonder the human stuck to their old chemically powered guns. This was power! A human soldier with an identical gun appeared, spraying the corridor with bullets, killing a vorcha and Bracks's last batarian. Brack returned fire, cutting the human down as he continued to fight.  
By now the last of his unit was down. There was no way out. No way to survive. But he had known that from the beginning. Brack no longer cared. Survival had become irrelevant. All that mattered was the fight. He felt the change in his mind as the bloodrage took over. Time seemed to slow down as everything and everyone around him started moving in slow motion. More humans appeared, and he swung his weapon around, firing burst after burst. Some hit, some didn't but even the ones that missed served a purpose as they forced the human soldiers to dive for what little cover they could find. Another bullet hit him, but by now the bloodrage had taken over and he hardly noticed. The gun finally clicked empty and Brack roared in rage. He could have tried to pick up another gun. His Graal was lying around somewhere and would certainly have cooled off by now. But that didn't matter. His focus had narrowed to only one thing. FIGHT. He tried to move forward, swinging the gun like a club, but his leg gave way and he fell sideways against the wall. More bullets slammed into him, tearing chunks out of armour and flesh alike. By now the humans had overcome their fear and were closing in on him, trying to get a clear line of fire. He saw the muzzle flashes through a bloody haze. Then two, three hard impacts, much more powerful than ordinary bullets-

The three grenades went off as one. Not even a krogan could withstand that kind of damage. The surviving human soldiers approached cautiously

"Now that was one tough toad," someone remarked.

"They're all like that. They say these freaks have, like, three hearts and six lungs. So, you need to kill them three times"

Someone snorted. It was no time for laughter, but sometimes, humour was all that kept you sane.

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 **Thermal clips are being introduced in this era, but it takes time. Brack's Graal was an older model that had a fixed heat sink.**

 **Meanwhile, humanity has introduced a new version of the smartgun. The idea is that this model has a grip/trigger assembly that actually makes sense. Look up the original model from aliens. The triggers (multiple!) are very strange. It's also linked directly to the soldier's helmet, rather than having that monocle sight. Unfortunately, that leaves it a bit more vulnerable to ME style sabotage.  
**

 **The trigger I describe is actually a 'cold weather trigger' designed to be used by humans wearing heavy gloves. No particular reason for this weapon to have one, but it's the only way a krogan could fire an unmodified human weapon.**


	6. The Slave

**Mass Effect is the property of Bioware and EA. The Alien/Predator franchise is owned by 20th Century Fox.**

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The sound of gunfire was echoing through the corridors. Closer this time. Always closer. Meanwhile, the governor was pacing back and forth and Variana was making herself as small as possible, careful to stay out of his line of sight. Normally, it would have been tough for a naked asari to stay unnoticed, but the governor was preoccupied and Variana had become quite good at blending into the background when necessary. It was one of the first lessons any slave learned: when and how to avoid drawing attention. Variana had learned it quickly and it had served her well in the months since the passenger ship she had been travelling on had been seized by pirates. Unfortunately, she had not always been able to put that lesson into practice. Not, when it meant that the attention of whoever was near would focus on her children instead.  
So far, that had not actually happened, but that was no great cause for comfort. Although both her daughters were young, not even having entered their maiden stage, Variana wasn't so naive as to believe that their age was protecting them. No, the motive was purely commercial. They'd fetch a better price if they remained unmolested. And that was the nightmare that had occupied her thoughts from the beginning. The raiders that were running the Torfan slave market had been hoarding up slaves for a while now, clearly anticipating a large auction, and her daughters were among the merchandise, locked in holding pens in the lower levels of the colony. Once the auction started, her children would be sold, probably to some warlord in the terminus and that would be the last time she would see them.

So, when governor Craldar Gos'radah took notice of her, she had actively encouraged his interest. The Governor thought highly of himself and considered that having an asari as a personal slave was just the sort of perk a high caste batarian like himself was entitled to. He wasn't actually high caste of course. At least, not the highest. They would never dirty themselves with something so minor as the governorship of a planet like Torfan. He was one caste lower. That made him just high enough that the high caste batarians that visited Torfan occasionally didn't feel too dirty when they had to interact with him. Meanwhile, they tolerated his obsequious fawning and allowed him to imitate his betters.  
Rather than hiding herself as much as possible, Variana had actually put in considerable effort to make sure Craldar noticed her. After all, if the governor considered himself entitled to one asari slave, why not three. The idea of her daughters joining her in Craldar's bed was utterly revolting, but they'd be performing a similar function no matter who bought them and at least this way, they'd still be together. Unfortunately, while Craldar was hardly the brightest star in the galaxy, he was smart enough not to overstep his privileges too much and, while he considered poaching one slave to be an acceptable exercise of his personal authority, persuading him to make it three had not been as easy as she had thought. Apparently, keeping an entire harem of asari slaves would be considered a bit too presumptuous, not to mention that the loss of income incurred when the governor appropriated slaves rather than having them sold would annoy pirates and raiders alike.  
Still, Variana had not given up hope and set herself to persuading Craldar to change his mind. She had begged, she had pleaded, she had swallowed her disgust and without prompting performed a variety of services, some of which the sick bastard had apparently not even thought of himself. That seemed to have worked, but deep down she knew better. He'd keep her hope up to make sure she kept performing, but in the end, her little girls would be sold, just like so many others, into a lifetime of slavery. Meanwhile, she would remain in Torfan wondering about their fate for the rest of her natural life; and for an asari, that could be a very long time.

Of course, all of that was before the gunfire. It was not the first gunshot that Variana had heard since her arrival. Shooting incidents happened occasionally on Torfan, but this was different. Variana had never been a commando, but even she could tell that whatever was happening was no incident. Whoever was out there, they seemed determined to fight their way through the colony. Which left two questions: who would go through all that effort and what were they going to do if they succeeded?

 **-o-o-o-**

Silence. The gunfire had faded away and governor Craldar had stopped pacing. Both were ominous in their own way. As the minutes went by Variana wondered what would be next. It seemed that the battle for the colony was over and obviously the intruders had won, or the colony security would have contacted the governor by now. For one wild moment, she wondered if both sides had wiped each other out. That would mean that she and the governor would be the only people left alive on the planet, other than the slaves in the holding pens. Then, a new sound filled the room, the faint hiss of something very hot coming from the door. Near the frame, the metal of the door started glowing red, then white, until it became too bright to watch. Smoke started to fill the room as the glow traced a path around the edge of the door. Then, with a resounding slam, the entire door fell inward. From the corner

From the corner of her eye, Variana saw the governor step back to get further away from the gaping hole where the door had been, but her attention was quickly drawn back to the door as two armoured figures appeared through the smoke. The figures were vaguely asari-like but somewhat taller and broader in build. Their armour was heavier than what an asari commando would have favoured and they wore helmets that covered their faces except for the eyes.

 _Humans._ Variana had never actually met any of the newly discovered species, but she had seen recordings on the news.

"Stop right there!" Having lived with Craldar for several months, Variana had come to know him rather well and she would not have credited him with the ability to move quickly. It seemed, that she had been mistaken because he was behind her before she had even realized he had moved. The next moment she felt the hard pressure of a gun barrel against the side of her head.

"Put it down, four-eyes." Even the human's voice, despite the distortion of the helmet and the translation software, sounded vaguely like an asari.

"One more step and she dies!"

"Really? Then I got a riddle for you freak: What has two thumbs and doesn't give a fuck? This guy!"

"Now, now," The other human spoke up for the first time. "Let's not be too hasty. Blue girl ain't half bad. Look at those tits. It would be a terrible waste."

"What, you into xenos?"

"Hey, all I'm sayin', she looks like she got everythin' in the right place and then some."

"I don't know man, blue just ain't the right colour. Besides, I cannot get past those tentacles on her head."

"Okay, to each his own. I'm just sayin', we may want to give this some thought."

He turned back to the batarian.

"Hey, four-eyes! How 'bout this. You let her go, you put down the weapon, and maybe we won't add extra holes to your ugly face."

"You won't shoot me, you'd kill her."

The human shook his head. "I guess four-eyes is as dumb as he's ugly. Pay attention, freak. We don't care. If we got to, we'll shoot straight through her, and then through you, and if you had a twin brother standin' behind you, the bullets would go through him as well. Now, I'll feel bad 'bout wasting such a nice piece of ass. But in the end, it's a xeno piece of ass, so I won't feel that bad, and either way, you're still a corpse, which will make me feel good again. Oh, by the way, you can stop glancin' 'round for help. There's nobody comin'. Just us, and the lieutenant. And trust me, you don't want to wait around for her."

"And why is that?" A new voice remarked. A third human appeared in the door. This one had taken off the helmet, _her_ helmet Variana realized _._ Even under her present circumstances, she couldn't help but wonder at the cosmic joke that the universe had played upon two species. All this alien needed was some blue paint and her face could have passed for that of an asari on any world in citadel space. Of course, that deception would only work as long as she covered the top of her head, where dark hair had been pulled back from the face in a style that actually resembled an asari's crest somewhat.

"Well?"

The posture of the two other humans changed markedly as she entered the room.

"Sorry, ma'am. We were just havin' a conversation with four-eyes here."

"And why is that?"

"We got a hostage situation."

The human female stepped forward, her eyes scanning the room. A handgun was dangling idly from one hand. Other than that, she appeared to be unarmed. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, even though it had probably lasted no more than a few seconds, she spoke.

"You are Craldar Gos'radah, governor of Torfan." It was a statement, not a question.

"That's right!" Variana could feel the governor's muscles tensing as he pulled her more tightly against him. "And I demand-"

"I don't have time for this." In a single move, the human raised her weapon and fired.

The governor screamed. Understandably, because the bullet tore straight through his wrist, causing him to drop his weapon. Variana also screamed, because that same bullet, most of its energy unspent, went on to slam into her shoulder. Without paying further attention to either of them, the human turned back to the other soldiers.

"Now that the hostage situation had been resolved, get a medic in here. It seems we get to find out if that new medigel formula works across species as advertised."

"Yes, ma'am. You want him to treat the asari?"

"Her?" For a moment the human seemed confused. Then she shrugged, the movement barely visible through her body armour. "I suppose it wouldn't hurt, but not before they've patched up our friend the governor. I have a few questions that need answers before he bleeds to death."

 **-o-o-o-**

Whatever the substance was that the human medics had used to treat her shoulder, it must have contained some sort of anaesthetic, because the pain had subsided to a dull ache. They had been kind, in their own way, Variana supposed. In fact, one of them had even stripped a blanket of the governor's bed so she could cover herself, though modesty was not particularly high on her list of priorities. She had other things to worry about.  
Human soldiers had dragged several batarians, most of them wounded, into the room and tossed them to the ground, while the human female who seemed to be in charge snapped out orders. That had been a while ago. Since then, it seemed as though they were at something of a loss, many of them using communicators, talking quickly and using so much jargon and abbreviations that Variana had trouble following it, despite her translation implant.

One of them, who seemed to hold some sort of limited authority re-entered the room after leaving it a few minutes earlier and approached the woman who seemed to be in command.

"Lieutenant Shepard, ma'am? We've secured the slave pens below, but we cannot open the cages. Not without using explosives. We need a decision now, and it seems you're in command."

"I am? Where's the major?"

"Major Kyle?" Reading human expressions was fairly simple for an asari thanks to the shared facial musculature. In this case, it seemed as though the soldier was carefully concealing any emotion. "He went back to the surface, ma'am."

"He went back to the surface?"

"Yes, ma'am. Some time ago, I believe."

"I see." The human's expression was unreadable, but there was something in her tone that made Variana wish there was a nice, dark place for her to hide in.

"Well, I guess it's up to me then." She turned around at looked at the batarian prisoners that had been dumped together in a corner of the room. "You! Four-eyes. Listen up. I'll make this very simple for you. One of you is having a very lucky day. He's the one that will tell me how to open those cages. The rest of you, well, let's just say that they're not nearly as lucky."

No-one answered.

The human officer smiled without a trace of humour.

"Let me break it down into simple words: Cages. Open. How?"

"Fuck you, bitch!" Apparently, one of the batarians had not quite caught up with recent events. In particular, he seemed confused about the changes in his own place in the grand scheme of things. That was remedied immediately. A boot shot out and caught the unfortunate batarian in the face.

"That was not the answer I'm looking for. Please pay attention, because I'm not in the mood to repeat myself. This is how it works: Four eyes talk shit, four eyes get hit. And then-" she drew a knife from a boot sheath. "-then four-eyes get slit. So, let's start this conversation again. Now, I have TWO questions: One: How do we open those cages? Two, which of your eyes would you like to keep?"

"Eh, ma'am." One of the human soldiers spoke up.

"Yes?"

"You don't mean to-, I mean you cannot -. Ma'am, they are prisoners of war. You cannot torture them for information!"

The woman looked over her shoulder. "You're sadly mistaken, sergeant. These are not 'prisoners of war' because we're not AT war. They are slavers, and they're pirates. That's all that matters. I can torture a few slavers and pirates. In fact, I can torture hundreds of slavers and pirates. You know why, sergeant? Because nobody gives a FLYING FUCK about slavers and pirates. Now," she turned back toward the batarians. "Where were we? Oh, yes, one of you was going to tell me how to open those cages and, in doing so, he was going to reduce the number of eyes that he was about to lose."

There was only silence and Variana suddenly realized that she was holding her breath in anticipation. She got the distinct impression that several of the human soldiers were doing the same thing.

"No-one had anything to say? Then I can only assume that no-one here knows how to open the cages. In that case, no-one here is of any use to me, other than as target practice. You!" She pointed to the batarian who had spoken up previously and who was still busy spitting out the teeth she had kicked loose. "You had something to say. I suggest you keep talking."

She knelt down before the batarian and pressed the point of her knife against his face, just below one of his lower pair of eyes. "If you know how to open those cages, this would be a really good time to share that information."

The batarian tried to twist his head away, but bumped into the wall behind him. The pressure on the knife increased and blood started trickling down his face. "You don't want to share? That would be very stupid. But then again, you're batarian. Being stupid comes with the territory."

"Damn y-" The batarian nearly choked on the words. "I don't know-"

"Then who does?"

The batarian hesitated again, snarled something as the pressure on the knife increased. Blood was now flowing freely over his face. "He does!" he tried to point at the governor, but his hands had been tied. "Damn it, he has the codes! The governor has-"

"Excellent, we're making real progress here. Now shut up. You!" She turned toward governor Craldar, who was sitting on the ground nearby, nursing his injured wrist. "Your turn. The codes."

"If you think-"

"No, I don't just think that you will give me the codes. I know it for a fact. The only question is how long it will take. The codes."

From somewhere, Craldar seemed to have dredged up some courage. "I will no-"

"Oh, for..." It happened so fast that Variana barely realized what was happening. One moment the human was still several paces away from the governor, the next she had crossed the distance and in the same motion slammed her knife down into one of his legs. He screamed.

"The codes, now." She started to twist the knife. "Remember how quickly we fixed that shot wound? It's called medigel. Wonderful substance. Stops the bleeding, accelerates the healing, even stops you from going into shock. And we just proved that it'll work across multiple species. We're gonna make a fortune with it, the moment we start selling it in Citadel Space. Unfortunately for you, it also means that I can keep stabbing you over and over and over. We'll just keep fixing you up. Now, the codes."

She pulled the knife out of the wound, causing blood to flow all over the governor's robes. "Want me to do that again?"

"No, Stop!" It seemed Craldar's courage had just run out. Or perhaps he had finally grasped the reality of his situation. "They're in my omnitool! I'll show! I'll show!"

"Excellent."

It took only a few seconds to activate the omnitool and retrieve the codes. The humans checked, double checked, then sent a message. A few seconds later, the one who had been addressed as sergeant received an answer.

"It worked ma'am. Cages are open."

The officer nodded. "Good. Now, before we start the evacuation; you," she turned to one of the medics. "You checked the asari, correct?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Variana held herself very still. So far, the humans had not mistreated her and watching the governor get stabbed had been a wonderful moment. However, the last thing she wanted was to become the focus of their attention.

"Scar at the back of her skull?"

"Yes, ma'am. Looks like they put in a control chip. Just as intel said there would be."

The officer approached and knelt down, so her eyes were at Variana's level. "Blue lady. Yes, you. You know about the chip?"

Variana nodded. Of course, she did. It was not a though the batarians had used anaesthetic when they inserted it. Besides, Craldar had taken a great deal of pleasure in describing what it could do.

"Just to make sure we've got the right data: what is it supposed to do?"

Variana hesitated. Clearly, the humans knew something, but how safe was it to tell them everything? If they managed to get the control codes from Craldar, which seemed a rather safe bet, it would give them even more power over her than they already had. Then again, the chip had to be dealt with. Besides, she had just seen what could happen if she refused to answer.

"It..., when it's activated it stimulates the nerves. The pain centre. If I.. if we disobey-"

"Instant punishment with one push of the button. I get the picture. Pathetic bastards cannot even be bothered to put some effort into their sadism. What else? Does it come with a self-destruct, explosives?"

"Yes. They said... They said they could trigger it at any time. Or if we got out of range of-"

"Of a local transmitter. Very clever. No escapes. Well, it seems intelligence got it right for a change."

The woman stood up and looked at Craldar.

"You thought we didn't know? So, what was the plan? We get the slaves out of the cages, put them into the shuttles, lift off and... boom. Instant slaughterhouse. Not a very smart plan. How exactly did you think to get away with that? hell, even if we hadn't known, you think none of the slaves would have alerted us? Or didn't you think at all?" She smiled; it was not a pleasant expression. "Never mind, it makes things simpler." She turned back to the medics. "We've got instructions on how to shut those things down, right?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Good, because I wouldn't trust governor four-eyes here to give us the deactivation codes. Test the procedure on the asari. If it works, set up shop at the landing site. Every slave that comes through has to be checked and treated. Sergeant, go down to the holding area and start moving the slaves out. We're behind schedule."

The sergeant saluted. "Yes, ma'am." He seemed to hesitate, as though he wanted to say more. As the officer turned away and walked to the door, he spoke up.

"What about the others, ma'am?"

"Others?"

"Yes, ma'am. It isn't just humans down there. Must be about a thousand of all kinds of xenos. What are we supposed to do with them?"

"Orders are clear. All slaves are to be removed from the colony. No exceptions."

"But what if they start making trouble?"

The woman froze in midstep.

"Trouble? We're saving them from a life of slavery. They should be grateful. In any case, if they start making trouble, we can handle it. That's why they give us airlocks."

Without another word, she stalked out of the room.

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 **And the Butcher of Torfan is born.  
**


	7. Points of view

**Mass Effect is the property of Bioware. 20th Century Fox owns the Alien/Predator franchise.**

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 **Torfan, shuttle docking ports.  
**

The crash harness was uncomfortable, but the humans had insisted the she had to use it. It added to the residual pain from her wounds, both from the initial gunshot as well as the spot where her control chip had been deactivated. It also didn't bode well for the comfort of the flight, but Variana wasn't about to complain. Both her daughters were on the same shuttle. She had spotted them as the humans were processing the liberated slaves for transport and had not let them out of her sight from that moment on. The humans seemed to have understood and put them all on the same shuttle. In fact, they had been rather kind to them in general. They had even come up with some clothing for her to put on, though she had needed help with the unfamiliar fastenings. One of them had used the opportunity to feel her up but, again, she wasn't about to complain.

Somewhat curiously, there was no sign of any of the prisoners. They had still been alive -though bleeding- when she was taken from the governor's quarters, but she had not seen any of them since. Not that she particularly wanted to see them, but she couldn't help but wonder what would be done about them. There had been trials of batarian slavers in the past, but not many. Most of the time, they would be extradited to the Hegemony, which insisted that they alone could give them a 'fair and even-handed' trial. That was usually the last time they were ever heard from, though the batarian ambassador would always go on record that they had been prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Those that were heard from again had been released because of 'lack of evidence', 'faulty procedures', or other reasons.

It seemed that the humans had other plans, though she didn't fully understand what was going on. There had been a brief conversation by the two humans who seemed to be in charge, but she had only picked up part of it.

 _"What about the prisoners, ma'am._ We'll _need_ some _extra security when we move them."_

 _"No we don't."_

 _"Lieutenant, ma'am-"_

 _"They get to stay here, sergeant."_

 _"Here? But lieutenant-"_

 _"Right here, sergeant. We have no further need for them."_

That had been the end of the exchange. Variana still wondered exactly what they had meant. In general, she would agree that Craldar and his cronies were of no particular use to anyone, other than as targets for biotics practice. Still, it seemed a bit strange to just leave them here, where they would be found within hours, or days at most, as soon as their accomplishes in the Hegemony learned what had happened.

Her train of thought was broken by a series of bumps as the docking clamps were released, followed by the roar of the engines as the shuttle took off. She had been right about one thing. Human shuttles used crash harnesses for a very good reason. They were definitely not designed for comfort. She caught her daughter's eyes as they looked at her and tried to convey some reassurance. It wasn't all that difficult. She didn't know where they were going, or what would happen to them when they got there, but that was for later concern. Right now, they were leaving Torfan and that was all that mattered.

 **-o-o-o-  
**

 **Torfan, wide orbit**

It had been a productive day for the STG team, but a nerve-racking one. Salarian stealth systems were good, but they were not perfect and the humans had been quite thorough. By now, every known ship in Torfan space, trader or pirate, had been boarded, the crews imprisoned and price crews placed aboard their vessels. There was no way the Special Tasks Group could allow the humans to do the same to one of their espionage vessels, even if that meant using the self-destruct and detonating its eezo core. Fortunately, it seemed that they had not been noticed, or, if they had, the humans had chosen to ignore their presence. Meanwhile, Kirahe and his team had had a front row seat while the United Systems Military conducted their assault and they had gathered enough data for months of analysis.  
However, it seemed as though the show was about to end. A swarm of shuttles had launched from the warships in orbit, but this time they appeared to be flying empty toward the planet and loaded on the return.

The shuttles flew back and forth, turning around within minutes of docking in an impressive display of efficiency. A simple estimate showed that between five and ten thousand people were being evacuated, far more than the number of troops that had been sent down in the attack.

 _Operation going smoothly, no surprises. Must have dealt with control chips. Must have examined data. You're welcome. Glad I could be of assistance._

Kirahe smiled. Although he would have prefered to be part of the action himself, it was still good to see a plan come together.

 _Did the right thing. Humans solved problem of Torfan, retrieved their people. Will be happy, perhaps even reasonable._ _ _Perhaps even saved non-human slaves, if feeling generous. Would help with negotiations._ Galaxy can move forward._

The last group of shuttles lifted off and made rendez-vous in orbit, then their mother ships backed off. Near the mass relay, the two oversized cruisers turned around and approached the planet.

"Energy spike!" One of the STG agents called. "Mass accelerators charged and... firing!"

 **-o-o-o-**

 **Torfan, close orbit around the gas giant**

It had been a long day, and events had followed a course that had been sadly predictable. From his position in orbit around the gas giant, Bray had been able to record much of what had been happening, at least until the exterior sensors of the colony had been shut down and he had to rely mostly on the passive sensors of his shuttle alone. All in all, it made for a fairly comprehensive view of a small scale planetary assault and Bray felt confident that he'd be able to sell the information to somebody for a few credits. Now it looked as though things were coming to an end. There were no more shuttle flights and the two oversized cruisers were on an intercept course with a point in orbit directly above the colony. Or, what would be left of the colony by the time they arrived. Both cruisers opened fired together. Their mass accelerators seemed to be relatively weak for the size fo the ship, but the volume of fire was high, with a steady stream of metal slugs raining down on the colony.

Mass accelerator rounds slammed into the planet, again and again until the entire colony, or what was left of it was hidden under a dust cloud so thick that even in Torfan's thin atmosphere it took time to settle. Then the guns fell silent. For what seemed like an eternity, nothing happened, then a single missile launched from one of the human warships. Bray looked at the sensor read-outs as the lone missile spiralled inward toward the planet. High in the atmosphere, it seemed to fall apart into multiple smaller objects that continued the downward trajectory and disappeared into the dust clouds. Long seconds past, then suddenly a dozen light spots appeared, their glow penetrating the dust, then expanding as the dust itself seemed to start burning.

Bray looked at the data in disbelieve.

 _Nukes! By the gods, they actually used nukes against the planet._ It seemed impossible. It just wasn't done. Even though the council prohibition only applied to garden worlds, no-one had used a nuclear weapon against any planetary target since the Krogan Rebellions. _Guess the humans didn't get the memo. Gods, look at that radcount. Those must have been city busters. Twelve of them mounted on a single missile and from the radiation measurements they have cobalt shells around the nukes. They're dirty as hell._ One thing was certain: If anyone had been left alive after the humans departed, they were dead now. Nor would anyone return to rebuild the colony. _So much for Torfan. I suppose Omega will be taking up the slack from now on. Not that they'll be moving human slaves through there anytime soon. Aria T'Loak may be crazy, but she isn't stupid. No, I think we all got the message loud and clear. No trading in human slaves. Not today, not tomorrow.  
_

The two cruisers changed course, breaking away from the planet. At the same time the mass relay lit up and a wave of human fighter craft entered the system.

 **-o-o-o-**

 **HNV Blade of Destiny, one jump away from Torfan.**

"General, the humans have started to move."

Adrian Victus looked at the display. For hours, nothing had changed, except for occasional mass relay activity as the humans communicated with their people on the other end of the connection. Now they seemed to be regrouping. The fighters were forming up in a new formation, the shuttles in the centre.

"No sign of an attack. In fact, it almost looks as though-"

The mass relay flared up and the human fighters disappeared.

"General, one of the fighters remained behind. I have an incoming transmission."

"Let me hear it."

"Turian fleet, this is groupleader Ichijo Eika, please acknowledge."

Victus activated his communicator. "This is General Victus."

"General Victus, the situation in Torfan has been resolved and the United Systems Military will vacate the system within the hour. I am also authorized to inform you that we currently have nine-hundred and forty-four non-human ex-slaves in custody. Many of them require medical care. The human ambassador will contact the Citadel Council to discuss their repatriation." There was a moment silence. "And, general, thank you for your forbearance. I'm glad we were able to resolve this without the need for further hostilities. This is groupleader Ichijo Eika, signing off."

The mass-relay flared up one more time and the last fighter disappeared from local space.

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 **Thanks for all the reviews on the last chapter. Introducing Shepard was a challenge. There have been so many variations in fanfics that it was tough to come up with an interesting characterization. I even considered making her an Alien/Prometheus style robot. That idea had a lot of appeal but it would create too many problems. (There would be no way for her to interact with a Prothean beacon). So, I started her out as a rather brutal character, though part of it can excused by the fact that she just had to fight her way through Torfan, lost a lot of soldiers and has basically been abandoned by her commanding officer. We should be careful about classifying her as a renegade, though. Remember, this is someone who was raised and trained in a society that is somewhat fascist and definitely xenophobic. We don't yet know what kind of orders she had. For that matter, why was a junior officer left in command on the ground when there was a whole fleet in orbit? Normally, I'd expect a senior officer to come down once the fighting is over, even if it's just to take credit for the victory. Oops, was that foreshadowing?  
**


	8. The councillor

**I don't own either Mass Effect or the AvP franchise**

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 **I'm back. Sorry for the long delay, but I just got a new job, which involved moving to South Korea for the foreseeable future. Now that I'm settled in, I can go back to writing.**

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 _So much has changed._

Salarians weren't used to watching social and political changes unfold on galactic scale. Their lives were too short and socio-political developments took too long. But councillor Nosharn had watched it happen.  
When he was born the galaxy was working the way it had worked for centuries. The governments of the three dominant species were running things as they saw fit. The other species, by and large, did as they were told. Meanwhile, the Citadel Council, respected but ultimately powerless, had advised and mediated and smoothed things over. And above it all, the military might of the turian Hierarchy had guaranteed the peace. It had not been an ideal system, but then again no system was ever ideal and by and large things had worked quite well. Anyone who disagreed could move to the Terminus and fend for themselves. A simple choice: peace and prosperity, albeit at the cost of some of your freedom on one side, anarchy on the other.

But that was before. Before the discovery of a new spacefaring species, the first in centuries. Before the Hierarchy in its arrogance had casually dispatched a few warships to deal with the newcomers. Before the humans had lashed out in anger and fear and exposed the fatal flaws in the turian order of battle. Before massed human fighter squadrons broke the Hierarchy's fleet and human soldiers trampled the turian pride into the dust.  
In that moment, all the old certainties had disappeared. The two other people in this room, together with one of Nosharn's predecessors, had seized that moment and in doing so, they had effected a change that no-one could have imagined. For the first time in centuries, the council held true power. When they spoke, people listened. When they gave an order, it was obeyed. With faith in the turian military badly shaken, not least among the turians themselves, the people of Citadel Space had rediscovered the importance of interspecies diplomacy, not just as a convenience, but as a necessity for survival, and only the Citadel Council could give it to them.  
Unfortunately, for all the change they had wrought, one thing had remained the same. The Council's power was still a matter of perception, rather than actual strength. The Council had power because people obeyed its orders and people obeyed orders, simply because they thought they should. But what would happen when they stopped obeying? It was a fundamental problem that Nosharn had come to understand very well. _Like unspoken agreement between Council and governments: They obey our orders if we don't push too far. In return, we don't push too far if they obey our orders. One misstep, power of the Council crumbles, galaxy worse off than ever before._

Case in point: the Batarian Hegemony. Of all the governments, they were the most troublesome and the least likely to obey. That made them the most dangerous. The Council had nearly pushed them over the edge when it allowed the humans to settle in the Skyllian Verge. However, in the immediate post-war political climate, the Council had had enough prestige to make it happen and ignore the batarian protests. That had created a galactic trouble spot that was bound to explode sooner rather than later, creating the possibility for a human-batarian conflict. Neither Tevos nor Sparatus would admit to it, but Nosharn suspected that that had been exactly what they had intended. Let the arrogant newcomers and the obnoxious batarians deal with each other. _Shortsighted, dangerous. Could have started a war. Then what do we do? Fight for Hegemony against humans? Would have won the war, but at great cost. Also lose moral authority. Fight alongside humans instead? Tempting, but politically difficult, would have needed guarantee that humans join Citadel. Simply stand aside? Might as well publicly declare Council to be powerless.  
_ But there had been no war. The Hegemony had hidden behind its claims of independent pirates and the humans seemed to have accepted that. Until they turned it around. Now the humans were hiding behind that same shield. They were not fighting against the Hegemony, they were just fighting against pirates. Surely, anyone would support such actions? Yesterday, Donal Udina, the new human ambassador, had appeared before the council, willing, even eager, to answer all questions. A rescue operation he had called it; to liberate the captured humans, of which he had thousands to show the Council in support of his claims. Even better, the humans had liberated hundreds of asari, salarians and members of associate species as well. Wasn't that wonderful? Some of them had already been delivered to the Citadel, where they could tell their stories of captivity and miraculous rescue. The rest were receiving medical treatment and would be repatriated as soon as the doctors cleared them for travel. It was unfortunate, of course, that so many of the slavers and pirates had been killed in the process of freeing the captives, but what could one do? If criminals insisted on resisting arrest, then sometimes violence was necessary.  
It had been a remarkably smooth performance, worthy of an asari matriarch, and Nosharn had watched it with considerable appreciation. Udina had risen several notches in his esteem. It had also made a remarkable contrast with the visible anger he had displayed immediately after the Skyllian Blitz. Had that been just an act, a deliberate ploy to distract the rest of the galaxy with a show of impotent rage? In any case, he had outmanoeuvred the Hegemony quite nicely.  
Unfortunately, the Hegemony, finding itself in an impossible position, had now decided to raise the stakes in a desperate attempt to win a game that was already lost. They had delivered the Council an ultimatum: Either support the Hegemony in taking action against the humans, or the Hegemony would withdraw from the Citadel. The discussion that followed had been short and to the point.

 **-o-o-o-**

"Absolutely not," Sparatus voice was cold. "Whatever we may think of the human actions, their ambassador was correct. They have not violated their treaty with us. Any attempt on our behalf to punish them will just make us look foolish. Already people are asking why we didn't take such action ourselves. Besides, what form would the punishment take? I can tell you now that the Hierarchy will not go to war over the deaths of a group of criminals. So, what would the alternative be? Economic sanctions will never work and may hurt us more than them. Especially if these rumours about a medical breakthrough are true."

He paused for a moment, then continued.

"The batarians say they will leave. I say, let them leave. They were always more trouble than they were worth. Let them isolate themselves and see how they like it. Under the circumstances, I doubt anyone will blame us. After all, we can hardly be expected to support pirates and slavers."

Tevos nodded. "I concur. This situation would have occurred sooner or later anyway. Better that it happens now when we clearly have the moral high ground, rather than under less favourable circumstances."

"And what about the humans?" Nosharn asked. "Once the Hegemony is isolated, the United Systems Military may decide on direct military action against them."

"Possibly," Sparatus admitted. "But that possibility always existed. The humans are not stupid. They must have realized how little support the Hegemony had among the other governments. Frankly, I would not have been too surprised if the USM had invaded the Hegemony directly. I suppose we should applaud them for showing this much restrained. Having the Hegemony leave the Citadel may increase the risk, but it has its advantages too. If the batarians leave the Citadel we will no longer have treaty obligations. We can try to mediate from a neutral position. But I doubt it will happen, at least not under the present circumstances. For all their warlike talk, the humans tend to respond, rather than be proactive. They seem to take some pride in the fact that they never start a war, but only fight to defend themselves. Of course, if the Hegemony organises a second Skyllian Blitz, I daresay they'll get smashed flat, but honestly, if they are that stupid, I doubt any power in the universe can save them."

"Still, losing the Hegemony will weaken us versus the humans and versus the Terminus. Can we afford to let that happen?"

"In terms of actual combat power, it makes little difference," Sparatus answered. "Their fleet looks strong on paper, but in reality it's a shambles: poorly trained, poorly equipped, poorly maintained. Their ground forces are in better shape, but not by much, and they're more of a police force than an army anyway, Worst of all, the Hegemony's officer corps is so riddled with nepotism and corruption that their soldiers are devoid of effective leadership. Oh, I'm sure they'd fight quite well when defending their own worlds, most people do; but as an effective force outside their own borders? No, we could never have relied on them. Besides, the departure of the Hegemony will actually allow the rest of Citadel Space to function more smoothly. In practice, we will be smaller, but not necessarily weaker. In terms of perception... Tevos?"

The asari councillor hesitated. "I think it will depend on how we present it. The Hegemony has never been popular, either with the governments or the people in general, and we can play on the issue of slavery to maintain the moral high ground. There will be some unrest, of course, but when people see that the economy won't suffer significantly, we will recover. And, as Sparatus pointed out, the absence of batarian bluster will probably be a benefit to the function of government everywhere. Of course, that's in the short term. In the long run, a lot would depend on how the batarians themselves develope. I suspect that they will either isolate themselves further and further, thereby becoming less and less relevant, or they will think better of their decision and aks to return to the Citadel after a few years. In the first case, well, we'll need to keep an eye on them, but I suspect their economy will collapse, rendering them powerless. If they want to come back, I suggest we allow it, and we'll be able to negotiate from a position of strength. Meanwhile, we can use this to improve our relationship with the Alliance of United Systems. "

"You want to use this to get some concessions out of them?"

"No, absolutely not." Tevos actually looked shocked at the suggestion. "Oh, I'm sure we could arrange a trade, where we abandon the Hegemony in exchange for a reduction of their import taxes or something like that, but that would not look good at all. We're supposed to be above such mercenary behaviour. Besides, this is an internal matter of Citadel space. We should not allow the humans to influence that directly. No, I'm thinking of our long-term relationship. Despite their militarism and xenophobia, our relationship with the humans has been improving steadily ever since the war. Or, at least it used to be until the Skyllian Blitz. We have more humans on the Citadel than ever before and they are moving into a number of planets as well. In particular on Noveria. Meanwhile, they have increased the number of our traders that are allowed into their space. This is a trend we should encourage. The more interaction we have, the more they get used to us, the better it is. The Blitz set us back, but now we can make up for the lost ground."

"And what about the other report," Nosharn asked. "Frankly, it makes for rather disturbing reading."

"Oh, that."

"Yes. It's all well and good to talk about slavery and keeping the moral high ground, but that will be rather difficult to maintain when the people we're siding with are behaving like a pack of wild varren."

"So they killed a few pirates and slavers," Sparatus scoffed. "Who cares?"

"Not exactly a few. They killed more than a thousand of them. But it's not just the numbers, it's the way it was done. Even the ones that surrendered were apparently executed or left to die in the bombardment. Some of them, after being tortured for information. And the humans didn't even bother to hide it. They did it right in front of the slaves. They must have known that word would get out. So, either they didn't care, or they are sending a message."

"Probably a bit of both," Sparatus said. "Remember, the soldiers that did it had first fought their way through the entire colony and they must have taken considerable losses. That has consequences. By the time they were done, it might not even have been possible to stop them from killing the prisoners. But I'm sure there was a bit of a message in it as well. Though it was probably aimed at the Terminus systems and the Hegemony, more than at us. Not a bad idea, really. Even if the Hegemony starts stirring up trouble, I doubt many pirates will be willing to help them out. At least, not for the foreseeable future. That denies the batarians the shield of plausible deniability, which means they are more likely to behave."

"Nosharn does have a point, though," Tevos interjected. "We will have to find a way to spin this if we want to publicly support the humans. Something that we regret the necessity of these actions and call for more restraint, but we weren't there and won't second-guess them. I'll work on a proper presentation."

 **-o-o-o-**

 _And so the galaxy changes again,_ Nosharn thought while composing his report. The Dalatrasses would not be pleased. The situation remained too fluid, hindering their ability to plan ahead. Not that Nosharn was all that fond of the Dalatrasses, but he could not ignore their opinions completely. Still, what was done was done. Whether they fully realized it at the time or not, Sparatus and Tevos, together with the now long dead Molnari, had set out on a course of action twenty years before and now they were determined to see it through. They would allow the humans to do as they pleased as long as they could put a positive spin on it. And along the way, they would tie the humans closer and closer to the Citadel until one day the galaxy would wake up and realize that there were now four, rather than three, major species in Citadel Space.  
 _Do they even realize price to pay? Humans ambitious, will not be willing to serve as associate species. WiIl want seat on council. Then what? Volus, elcor, hanar. All will feel slighted. Will demand council seats. Not impossible, but changes political balance. Council becomes big, unwieldy maybe, but also stronger._ _ _Presence of humans will force Hierarchy to follow council or lose position._ Quarrians and batarians. They'll see change, feel threat. Batarian government fails at cooperation. Arrogant to point of delusion. Quarrians smarter. Insular, but can cooperate. Will need allies. Krogan! Krogan fractured but can act as one when necessary. May respond to quarrian offer. Perhaps involve vorcha as well. Krogan and vorcha shocktroops transported in quarrian ships. Nightmare.  
_

 _"Give someone enough rope to hang himself."_ It was a human saying and it had taken Nosharn several hours of study before he fully understood its origin and meaning. He liked it. It showed the kind of political subtlety that suited the salarian mindset. But it had worrisome implications. Two decades ago, the Hierarchy had seized the rope with both talons, tied it around its collective neck and hanged itself in truly spectacular fashion, and now it seemed the Hegemony had done the same thing. But that left the Council to make a lot of decisions and if those decision failed... _Who is holding the rope now?_ If Nosharn had been human, he would have shrugged. Whatever happened, he would not be alive to see it. One more year on the council, then he would retire to live out what little time remained in peace and quiet. His successor, soon-to-be-councillor Valern, had already been selected. Let him deal with the future. _  
_

 **THE END**

 **The story continues in '** ** **Soon, everyone will hear the screams** ', first chapter has been published.**

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 **I didn't like the character of Udina much in the games (well, obviously he's unlikeable, but even for en 'evil' character, he annoys me). He is too much of a stereotype: the obstructive bureaucrat and the blindly ambitious politician rolled into one. Then, when in ME3 he finally seems to have grown a brain and a pair of balls, he starts conspiring with Cerberus. A pity, because I liked that version of Udina better than the one from the first game. Still, you don't normally achieve a position like this if you don't know how to play to an audience. So, I've chosen to believe that most of his obnoxious behaviour is an act that he chooses to portray because it suits his purpose at that time.**

 **Some reviewers speculated how the council would react. The question is: what can they do? They cannot claim jurisdiction over Torfan. If they do, they also admit to complicity in piracy and slavery. The Hegemony is officially not involved (again, Torfan is not part of council space) and the humans are not even a Citadel species. So, the council has no authority over anyone here. They have no grounds to interfere and they cannot demand that Shepard is handed over to them for trial. At most they could demand that the humans put her on trial, but under these circumstances, the humans would probably just laugh at them, which would make the council look weak and foolish. So, they just put the best possible face on it and move on.  
Of course, it will not be forgotten. One of my goals was to establish a strong reason why humans are considered to be dangerous and violent, which in the games never made much sense. This will definitely help.  
**

* * *

 **This was an interesting story to write. I always wanted to do a separate story on Torfan. If it's part of Shepard's past it's a truly defining moment and yet, there is very little canon information on it. Also, while it pops up in many fanfics, it's usually as part of a background story, rather than the focus of its own story. Using this particular format (each chapter from a different alien viewpoint) was a decision I made once I started writing. It seemed an interesting challenge.  
**


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